Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 7/18

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-07-18 19:50:22 Premium Content Part of the product MLB DFS

Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his MLB DFS picks. Cheese, one of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy sports and a winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize on both DraftKings and FanDuel, is here to give you his musings on the upcoming MLB DFS slate.

And….we’re back! Therefore, happy Friday! I hope you enjoyed a few days off and are ready to get back to the grind. We kick off the return of MLB with an 11-game slate that is headlined by the Twins heading into Coors Field and a spread-out pitching pool with plenty of options.

We appear to have a good slate for MLB weather, and I’m rooting for an entire second half of the season with no weather concerns. We’ll see what happens!

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

At the time I’m writing this, we still have 5-6 teams that have not fully officially named their starter for tonight. I’m going with my best guess for all these teams, but if something significant changes, I’ll update it as needed.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Max Fried at Braves – 23.1% K, 5.5% BB, 2.43 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
• Spencer Strider vs. Yankees – 29% K, 9.4% BB, 3.94 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
• Seth Lugo at Marlins – 21.9% K, 7.7% BB, 2.67 ERA, 4.08 SIERA
• Luis Castillo vs. Astros – 20.6% K, 7.5% BB, 3.41 ERA, 4.19 SIERA
• Nick Lodolo at Mets – 21.9% K, 5% BB, 3.38 ERA, 3.75 SIERA
• Chris Bassitt vs. Giants – 22.4% K, 6.3% BB, 4.12 ERA, 3.73 SIERA
• Tyler Glasnow vs. Brewers – 28.9% K, 14.4% BB, 3.52 ERA, 4.16 SIERA

I’m a little wary of Max Fried being the most expensive pitcher on this slate on DK. I would have no argument with anyone calling him the best real-life pitcher on this slate, but adding to his lower strikeout rate compared to other aces, we now have to wonder about a blister issue. He was pulled after 73 pitches in a very bad outing with a blister on his throwing hand. More than likely, if he starts, then he’s fine, and of course they aren’t going to limit his pitch count unless the blister re-appears. But these are the kinds of things that don’t always go away as easily as you want them to. If I’m going to pay for the relative ‘safety’ of a great real-life pitcher, I don’t want anything that takes that safety away. Plus, the matchup is not great. I don’t love Fried tonight.

I have a question for the group: Is Seth Lugo great? Really, that’s the question. Not, is he good? He’s definitely good. But is he great? It seems silly to ask; of course he’s not great. Right? I don’t know; he might be great. We have all been trained that ERA is not a relevant stat, or at least not an important one, and in anything even resembling a small sample size, I completely agree. But is 76 starts and 453 innings a small sample size? I’d say no. How about you? Since Seth Lugo was moved into the rotation full-time in 2023, he has made 76 starts and thrown 453 innings. Over those 76 starts, that ‘meaningless ERA’ = 3.11. Even the SIERA, while not ‘great,’ is 3.98. Now, for DFS purposes, I’m still not calling him great; he has the same strikeout issue as Max Fried, but 22% is fine. When we add in the matchup, which is really not all that good for strikeouts, I still end up thinking he is a little overpriced. So, while I’m not prioritizing him tonight, I just want to say … I’m not sure … he might be great.

We may or may not have seen the old consistency of Spencer Strider anytime this season, but there is no questioning that the upside still remains. He has a 29% K rate through 11 starts, with 8+ strikeouts in 4 of his last 6 games. He’s also been up over 100 pitches in his last two starts, so he is a full go there. This matchup against the Yankees is good news/bad news. Obviously, there is a lot of power risk, and Strider allowed some power even when he was elite. But there are also typically 6-7 higher strikeout bats in the lineup, with our projected lineup showing 7 of the 9 batters above a 23% K rate against righties this season. I think Strider is still underpriced on DK, and I’m calling him the SP1. Ownership could end up being an issue, and I don’t trust him enough yet to want to be way over the field, but he’ll be my highest-owned pitcher on both sites.

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