Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 5/16

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-05-16 16:48:32 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.

Happy Friday! We have a wild 12-game slate ,with one of the best group of pitchers I’ve ever seen. I can make a case for as many as 18 pitchers in my DK pool, with a remarkable 10 pitchers above 28% strikeouts so far this season. This also leaves me with the smallest pool of top tier offense that I’ve had this season…and maybe ever.

There is some dicey MLB weather in the early games, but it looks like we’re going to be clear to play whatever we want on the main slate.

Let’s dig into this unusual and tough slate, and again, Happy Friday!

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

After a couple of slow days on the pitching front, the aces are back in full force tonight. We’ll take a look at the cheaper options as well, but with this much upside, it’s difficult to imagine winning on this slate without a high-upside arm. I’m going to use $8,000 on DK as the cut-off for the top tier, but there are still some quality options in the $7,000-$8,000 range that we’ll get to next.

ACES AND MORE ACES

• Cole Ragans vs. Cardinals – 38% K, 7.6% BB, 4.20 ERA, 2.33 SIERA
• Garrett Crochet vs. Braves – 28.9% K, 9.3% BB, 1.93 ERA, 3.36 SIERA
• Chris Sale at Red Sox – 30.2% K, 6.1% BB, 3.97 ERA, 2.93 SIERA
• Joe Ryan at Brewers – 30.3% K, 2.8% BB, 2.74 ERA, 2.79 SIERA
• Nathan Eovaldi vs. Astros – 28.6% K, 2.4% BB, 1.78 ERA, 2.56 SIERA
• Jack Flaherty at Blue Jays – 28.9% K, 8.1% BB, 4.61 ERA, 3.28 SIERA
• MacKenzie Gore at Orioles – 35.2% K, 7.5% BB, 3.59 ERA, 2.59 SIERA
• Logan Webb vs. A’s – 29.3% K, 6.3% BB, 2.60 ERA, 2.70 SIERA
• Carlos Rodon vs. Mets – 31.2% K,9.3% BB, 3.29 ERA, 3.17 SIERA
• Max Meyer vs. Rays – 26.7% K, 8.2% BB, 4.37 ERA, 3.35 SIERA
• Corbin Burnes vs. Rockies – 19.8% K, 11.4% BB, 2.95 ERA, 4.54 SIERA

It’s tough to even know where to start here. The big names are obvious with their elite talent, but for the most part, they have less than ideal matchups.

So, I think let’s start by talking about the outlier from this group: Corbin Burnes. We have a remarkable 9 pitchers here, plus another in the next tier, who are above a 28% K rate this season. That is an incredible amount of upside. Meanwhile, Burnes is struggling with a below-average 19.8% K rate a sketchy 11.4% walk rate. On the plus side, he’s limited the damage in real life and has 4 quality starts in his last 5 starts. Of course, the real plus side, and the reason he’s in this tier, is the matchup with the Rockies. We’ve seen plenty of mediocre pitchers shut down this lineup, and despite the slow start with his peripherals, there is still at least some chance that Burnes is more than a mediocre pitcher based on his track record. In general, I’m nervous about seeing a big drop in swinging strikes at what is now his 4th straight season of declining strikeouts. My best guess here is that matchup is good enough that we get another quality start, and maybe he can even perk up to something like a strikeout per inning. But for $9,100 on DK and $9,900 on FD, I really don’t want that on this slate. I can’t tell you he’s a bad play — he should be fine — but personally, I just can’t play a guy whose skill set is this far below other pitchers without all that much of a discount.

So with that out of the way, what do we do with all of these aces? There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, the salaries follow a similar pattern on both sites. My initial view of this is that there is essentially no gap in talent between the top 7 pitchers, but there is a salary gap. It’s a little more relevant on DK, but basically, I don’t know why I would want to pay $10,600 for Garrett Crochet if Cole Ragans is just as good for $9,300.

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