Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 5/2

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-05-02 21:05:43 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 end the week with a big 12-game slate featuring a ton of everything. We have loads of high-end aces, we have chalky pitchers in good matchups, we have minimum-salary pitchers, we have elite spend-up offenses in good matchups, and we have value bats with high upside. We have it all!

Because we have so much to like, I’m going to be keeping an extra close eye on the projected ownership numbers in our MLB DFS optimizer, LineupHQ. A lot of my plans around this slate are based on the idea that a particular pitcher that we will discuss is going to be massive chalk and also on the idea that no batters anywhere are going to be even remotely popular. My thought process could change slightly if any of that changes, and if it does, I’ll let you know tonight on Crunch Time.

For now, let’s dive into this fascinating slate.

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

Wowzers, we have a fantastic pitching slate. I’m not even going to be able mention everyone who is viable, and I’m going to end up glossing over some great pitchers as well. I’ll also start by saying that a huge part of this analysis is based around the expectation that Robbie Ray comes in as massive chalk. If that appears to change throughout the day, I’ll revisit my thoughts on Crunch Time tonight.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Tarik Skubal at Angels – 28.8% K, 3.6% BB, 2.34 ERA, 2.73 SIERA
• Yoshinobu Yamamoto at Braves – 32.6% K, 8.3% BB, 1.06 ERA, 2.50 SIERA
• Max Fried vs. Rays – 21% K, 5.7% BB, 1.19 ERA, 3.66 SIERA
• Chris Bassitt vs. Guardians – 27.1% K, 4.9% BB, 2.62 ERA, 2.97 SIERA
• Joe Ryan at Red Sox – 29.1% K, 3% BB, 3.18 ERA, 2.79 SIERA
• Framber Valdez at White Sox – 20.9% K, 8.8% BB, 4.00 ERA, 3.93 SIERA
• Robbie Ray vs. Rockies – 24.6% K, 14.2% BB, 3.73 ERA, 4.51 SIERA
• Sonny Gray vs. Mets – 23.9% K, 5.1% BB, 3.60 ERA, 3.48 SIERA
• Clay Holmes at Cardinals – 27.5% K, 9.9% BB, 2.64 ERA, 3.36 SIERA
• Bryan Woo at Rangers – 23.6% K, 5.5% BB, 3.09 ERA, 3.58 SIERA

We start with 10 pitchers priced above $8,000 on DK, and all 10 of them could be the SP1 on a lot of slates. Rather than doing my usual rundown, I’m just going to jump right into the big discussion of the slate – Mr. Robbie Ray.

Part of the reason the Robbie Ray Rule was instated many years ago is that, more so than with any other pitcher, Robbie Ray is matchup proof, both to the good side and the bad side. What I mean by that is that a lot of pitchers are very matchup dependent – they are good plays in good matchups and bad plays in bad matchups – very simple. But with a pitcher like Ray, there is no such thing as a bad matchup, and there is no such thing as a good matchup. He is always pitching against himself. The unpredictability of a guy with his wonky control and power risk is why the Rule exists. In case you aren’t familiar, the Robbie Ray Rule is to fade him when he’s chalk and play him when he’s not.

Well folks, this Rule will be tested in a big way tonight, as Ray is at home against the Rockies. A quick peek at early projections tells me that he is not just going to be chalk…but likely mega-chalk. At $8,600 on DK and $8,400 on FD, he could be twice as owned as the next-closest pitcher. I get it — he could strike out 15 Rockies.

You know what else he could do? Walk 6 of them and allow 4 HRs. Officially, I cannot tell you that you aren’t supposed to play ‘the best play’ on the slate. But I can tell you that I think he’s a horrific play at 40%+ ownership on this slate. Like, a truly terrible, horrible play. I don’t think he’s going to fail, and he may very well break the slate…I don’t know. I just know that comparing his likely ownership to everyone else in this tier makes me love the Robbie Ray Rule more than ever tonight.

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