Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 9/19

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-09-19 15:26:31 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 big 12-game slate that features a bunch of everything. We have ace pitchers, gas cans, and playoff-caliber matchups. This slate is a fun reminder of how little real-life baseball has to with DFS. We have SEA/HOU that has a Game 7 of the ALCS feel to it, with ace pitchers for two teams tied for 1st place in their division. And yet, it’s kind of ‘overshadowed’ by the abysmal Angels facing the woeful Rockies in Coors Field.

It looks like we should be all clear on the MLB weather front, so let’s dive right in to this interesting slate.

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We have a strong group of aces up top. You could split these into two different groups of four depending on how you want to spread out your salary, but I’m using $8,500 on DK and $9,000 on FD as the cutoff for the top tier.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Garrett Crochet at Rays – 31.5% K, 5.6% BB, 2.63 ERA, 2.85 SIERA
• Bryan Woo at Astros – 26.8% K, 4.9% BB, 3.02 ERA, 3.34 SIERA
• Dylan Cease at White Sox – 29.8% K, 9.8% BB, 4.59 ERA, 3.58 SIERA
• Hunter Brown vs. Mariners – 28.2% K, 7.8% BB, 2.27 ERA, 3.42 SIERA
• Pablo Lopez vs. Guardians – 24.1% K, 6.1% BB, 2.64 ERA, 3.77 SIERA
• Trevor Rogers vs. Yankees – 24% K, 6.2% BB, 1.43 ERA, 3.69 SIERA
• Sonny Gray vs. Brewers – 26.8% K, 5.2% BB, 4.43 ERA, 3.31 SIERA
• Robbie Ray at Dodgers – 24.6% K, 9.7% BB, 3.50 ERA, 4.16 SIERA

It’s not completely fair to put all of these guys in the same tier, as the salaries have as much as a $2,000 spread on both sites. But if we do sort of lump them all together, we have a clear top four of Crochet, Woo, Cease, and Brown. It’s not only skill sets and matchup, but we also have all four of those pitchers playing for teams that are in must-win mode down the stretch.

With that in mind, I am not going to overthink it for a second if I can afford Garrett Crochet tonight. He always has an elite ceiling (as we’ve seen with his 22 strikeouts in his last 2 starts), and the 100-pitch range has been the norm. The slate is strong enough that this is not an absolute must-play, but I think he’s a clear step ahead of the rest of the pitchers here.

If I’m either going double aces on DK or can’t quite afford Crochet, it’s an interesting choice between the next three. This SEA/HOU series is going to be some awesome real-life baseball this weekend as they fight for the AL West crown.

It kind of looks like Hunter Brown has more upside than Bryan Woo based on the overall K% and a slightly higher-strikeout matchup. But I’m not really sure that’s true. Since the All-Star Break – in 10 starts for Brown and 11 starts for Woo – Woo has jumped out to another level with a 30.8% K rate, while Brown has dropped to just a 22.9% K rate. Woo has been more consistent, and he also gets another bump from the right-handed nature of the Astros lineup. These guys are both great, but I will take Woo ahead of Brown.

And then we have the up-and-down Dylan Cease in a slightly better matchup with the White Sox. Cease is supposed to have this massive ceiling, and I know it’s still in there somewhere, but for the most part, it’s been kind of disappointing – both for DFS and for the real-life 4.59 ERA. When I look at the White Sox lineup, it’s still all of the walks that jump out more than anything else. With a guy whose main struggle is control, I just can’t get him up ahead of any of the top three. Woo, Brown, and Cease are all very close, but Cease is just my SP4.

With the next four pitchers, only Pablo Lopez has a decent matchup, and while the other three are good pitchers, it’s tough to get super excited about facing the Yankees, Brewers, and Dodgers, who rank 1-2-3 in the league in scoring this season.

If you want to play that better matchup for Lopez, you’re really just hoping that this is the night he snaps back to his old form. In his first 2 starts off of the IL, he’s been fine, but we haven’t seen anything spectacular yet. I just think he’s priced too close to the top four to really love it. Even before the injury, his strikeouts were not at the level of these other aces, so while he’s playable, he is not in my primary pool.

As far as the other three – Trevor Rogers, Sonny Gray, and Robbie Ray – it’s really just dart throwing. Rogers has been the best real-life pitcher of this group, but he’s not the kind of guy you’d expect to take advantage of the Yankees’ strikeouts. With Ray, his control has just not been there the last month or so, and we still aren’t seeing the old strikeout ceiling. This means that Gray would be my preference out of this trio, but it’s not a strong lean. My stronger lean is either to spend up or find a cheaper SP2. So let’s move on and see if we can find something to like once we start going cheaper.

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