Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Monday 4/21

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-04-21 16:23:32 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 Monday! We have a weird little 6-game slate tonight that starts at 6:40 p.m. ET. There are a whole bunch of pretty good pitchers on the mound that leave a lack of clear top offenses. At first glance, it seems likely that we end up with some chalk that is not ideal, so among other things, I’ll be keeping an eye on projected ownership throughout the day in our MLB DFS optimizer, LineupHQ. While this day lacks obvious targets on the DFS slate, we should have some obvious targets with after-Easter chocolate sales, so keep those heads on a swivel!

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Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We have a very clear dividing line at pitcher with the same 8 pitchers on both sites, and then 4 random cheap leftovers that we really don’t need to mess with. I have ham and smoked turkey leftover, so I’m certainly not going to mess with Randy Vasquez.

TOP TIER (AND ONLY TIER) PITCHING

• Spencer Schwellenbach vs. Cardinals – 25.1% K, 4.7% BB, 3.22 ERA, 3.39 SIERA
• Hunter Brown vs. Blue Jays – 25.2% K, 8.1% BB, 3.25 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
• Aaron Nola at Mets – 24.1% K, 6.4% BB, 3.87 ERA, 3.66 SIERA
• Nick Lodolo at Marlins – 23.2% K, 6.7% BB, 4.35 ERA, 3.81 SIERA
• Robbie Ray vs. Brewers – 29.9% K, 14% BB, 4.50 ERA, 4.09 SIERA
• Kevin Gausman at Astros – 21.5% K, 7% BB, 3.66 ERA, 4.17 SIERA
• Max Meyer vs. Reds – 21.1% K, 7.5% BB, 4.78 ERA, 4.01 SIERA
• Tylor Megill vs. Phillies – 26.2% K, 9.2% BB, 3.51 ERA, 3.79 SIERA

This slate is showing us a perfect example of the differences between DK and FD pricing. What we’ve been seeing so far this season is that FD is quickly adjusting prices based on current form, while DK is dragging and barely moving salaries at all. You can have any opinion you want as to which one is ‘better,’ but it’s clearly going to change the way we play between the sites. The glaring example today is Max Meyer, whose early season 2.63 ERA has shot him all the way up to $10,100 on FD, while DK still has him priced at $7,600, based more on his 2024 stats. We also see FD more quickly lowering someone like Aaron Nola, who is now more than $2,000 cheaper than Hunter Brown on FD. Because we have two pitchers as well as bigger prize pools on DK, I am generally going to talk more about the DK pricing, but I’ll be sure to note the large discrepancies when they appear.

Part of the DK pricing is also that the aces are not often priced up as high, and the cheap pitchers are not priced as low as they used to be. This means that on most slates, we don’t have as much need to full punt at SP2. We see that today with only Spencer Schwellenbach and Hunter Brown priced at $9,000 or higher, while guys like Robbie Ray, Max Meyer, and Tylor Megill are below $8,000.

As we get into the actual slate analysis, Spencer Schwellenbach is going to be my SP1. Skill-set-wise, he and Hunter Brown are very close, but Schwellenbach has the far better strikeout matchup. Brown has been more consistent this season with 4 quality starts in 4 tries, so I certainly have no issue with him either. But given how close both the long-term and 2025 numbers are, I just prefer not facing a low-strikeout lineup like Toronto with a spend-up SP1.

While I’m quite down on Aaron Nola in general, I think it’s worth noting that he’s been more unlucky than bad this season. There is no reason at all to think he’ll end up anywhere close to his current .377 BABIP or 20% HR/FB rate. His strikeouts have been there, but he’s also walked 4 batters in back-to-back games. In a tough matchup with a Mets team that should use at least 5 lefties against him, he is going to miss my primary cut on DK, although he’s still very much in the MME mix. But in comparison to DK, this is where I think FD may have overreacted a bit to the early season ERA. At $8,200, he is in my pool on FD, though my strong preference is to spend more than that.

The winner of the matchup sweepstakes is Nick Lodolo, who gets to face the Marlins in Miami. He has a disturbingly low 15.2% K rate through 4 starts this season, though things did perk up a bit in his last start. On the plus side, his control has been better than ever, walking just 2 batters in 23 innings. All I can say right now is that I have no idea if or when his strikeouts bounce back to his old level, but there’s plenty of path to success even if they don’t. Miami is a low-walk, low-power offense, while Lodolo has allowed almost no power on the road since last season. He’s priced just a few bucks more than Nola on both sites, and I prefer Lodolo. He is still behind Hunter Brown for me, which makes him a little less appealing on DK, but he’ll be my go-to option below Schwellenbach on FD.

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