Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Friday 9/5

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-09-05 20:00:27 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 close out the week with an 11-game slate that looks quite tricky at first glance. There are a lot of high-end aces worth playing, and then we have a bunch of good pitchers against good offenses, which makes both sides difficult to love. The headline offense is San Diego in Coors Field, but even that is not a clear must-play, as the sites raised the salaries, and the Padres are not a deep lineup against lefties. We’ll see if we can clear any of this up as we dig through things.

The good news is that the MLB weather looks likely to cooperate with just a smattering of yellow, which should allow us to play everything.

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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We’ve got six high-end aces, and you could even include a couple more than that if you wanted. I’ll give you my favorites here, but this is a slate where you could rank these aces in any order, and you’ll get no argument from me.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Chris Sale vs. Mariners – 31.5% K, 6.9% BB, 2.45 ERA, 3.05 SIERA
• Hunter Brown at Rangers – 28.8% K, 7.7% BB, 2.34 ERA, 3.35 SIERA
• Cristopher Sanchez at Marlins – 26.3% K, 6% BB, 2.66 ERA, 3.11 SIERA
• Tyler Glasnow at Orioles – 29% K, 11.5% BB, 3.41 ERA, 3.83 SIERA
• Logan Gilbert at Braves – 34.2% K, 6.2% BB, 3.73 ERA, 2.69 SIERA
• Nick Pivetta at Rockies – 26.8% K, 6.7% BB, 2.84 ERA, 3.62 SIERA

In his first start back off the IL, Chris Sale looked as elite as ever with 9 strikeouts in 6 innings. He threw 78 pitches, which is nowhere near his usual workload, but he should be able to increase from here. I doubt he gets back near the 100-pitch mark, but if we hope for something in the 85-90 range, that still leaves him in the discussion for SP1. The matchup with Seattle is pretty good for strikeouts and comes with a little extra power risk. With Sale striking out 31.4% of righties while allowing just a .114 ISO on 7% barrels, I’m viewing this as a plus matchup. Because he’s gotten no discount after the IL stint and is the most expensive pitcher on both sites, he’s really not a priority, but I am very interested in spending up to be different if it continues to look like he is not going to be popular.

Any of these other pitchers can make a case to be the SP1 tonight, but for me, it’s Cristopher Sanchez. His per-inning strikeout expectation is a tad below these other aces, but the consistency with the control and ground balls more than makes up for that. Plus, he has shown the same ceiling as all these other aces, with a couple of 12-K games since the All-Star Break. The Marlins are also a weaker team against lefties and in a good ballpark for pitching. All these guys are great, and I don’t think there’s a clear best answer, but I’m starting with Sanchez at SP1.

The pitcher here who could also make a case to be at the top of the board but is missing from my primary pool is Hunter Brown. He’s great, and he’s also consistent. I just don’t love the way the strikeouts have tailed off, down to 23.4% in the 2nd half, while his ground balls are no longer a real factor, particularly against lefties. None of this is to say Brown is not a great pitcher, and if you wanted to call him your SP1, I wouldn’t yell at you for a second. I just know I’m not going to try and play all these aces, and I prefer Sanchez, and I’d rather spend up to be different with Sale.

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