Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Monday 8/24

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

Created Aug 24, 2026

Last Updated 2026-08-24 16:58:39 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 today. 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 muse about the August 24, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Monday! We have a good-looking slate on tap, with some clear top-tier pitchers and some clear top-tier offenses. There is a 3-game difference between the sites, with FD starting earlier than usual at 6:40 PM ET, while DK has a smaller slate that starts later than normal (at 7:40 PM ET). This gives us ample opportunity to enjoy dinner!

Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

This is a very strong pitching slate on both sites, with a very clear dividing line for a top tier but plenty of options at different price ranges. There’s enough of a pricing and talent gap, particularly on DK, that I am going to separate things into three tiers.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Zack Wheeler at Mariners – 30.4% K, 7% BB, 2.92 ERA, 3.06 SIERA
• Chase Burns at Giants – 29% K, 8.8% BB, 2.51 ERA, 3.46 SIERA
• Braxton Ashcraft at Padres – 26.4% K, 5.5% BB, 3.68 ERA, 3.28 SIERA
• Logan Gilbert vs. Phillies – 26.4% K, 6.2% BB, 3.35 ERA, 3.46 SIERA
• Parker Messick at Angels – 25.7% K, 6.8% BB, 2.54 ERA, 3.52 SIERA
• Cade Cavalli vs. Rockies (FD) – 27% K, 7% BB, 3.22 ERA, 3.31 SIERA
• Sandy Alcantara vs. Red Sox (FD) – 18% K, 6.5% BB, 3.46 ERA, 4.38 SIERA
• Drew Rasmussen at Tigers (FD) – 26.1% K, 4.7% BB, 3.03 ERA, 3.26 SIERA

I’ll start by saying that I would gladly play any of the five above pitchers available on the DK slate in any matchup on any slate at basically any salary. I’m going to try and separate them as best as I can, but I would not argue with any way you want to rank these guys, especially given the way that the salaries are broken up. I would also add Cade Cavalli and Drew Rasmussen to make it a top seven on FD that I’d play on any slate. Plus, Sandy Alcantara at home is pretty much in that realm as well, so why not make it eight.

The first thing I notice is the pricing difference, where Zack Wheeler and Chase Burns are almost in their own pricing tier on DK, while everything is more condensed on FD. With their higher strikeout rates, I would put Wheeler and Burns slightly ahead of the other three DK pitchers, but that is reflected in the salaries.

Zack Wheeler has been a little less dominant than usual over the past month, failing to reach 6 innings in any of his last 5 starts, with 2 of those starts showing very uncharacteristic control issues. I don’t see any red flags in his stuff or velocity, and he’s still got as much pitch-count ceiling as anyone when things go well. This ballpark is a big boost for him, while the matchup with the Mariners is about average. My initial thought is that I am not going to overreact to these last few starts and will call Wheeler the SP1 on FD where he’s only $9,800. On DK, perhaps he’s still the SP1, but I’m much less convinced that he’s the best option at his salary.

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