Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Monday 7/20

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2026-07-20 16:31:48 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 July 20, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Monday! This 14-game slate looks like some bonkers barn-burning bananas. We have several of the league’s best pitchers up top, the #1 offense in the league traveling to Coors Field, and winds ripping out at Wrigley Field. Fortunately, the salaries won’t allow you to just jam in a Misiorowski/Cease lineup with a Nationals stack, so while we do have a lot of obvious best plays, it’s not immediately clear that we are going to be able to have mega chalk with any of it. Let’s dive in and see what happens.

Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

Let’s start with some big-picture context. This season, Jacob Misiorowski and Dylan Cease are #1 and #2 in the league in strikeout rate and #1 and #2 in K-BB%. Jacob deGrom ranks 3rd in K-BB%, and Cristopher Sanchez ranks 2nd in SIERA – right in between Misiorowski and Cease. There are a lot of ways to gauge pitching talent, but you could certainly make an argument that those are the four best pitchers in the world. Well, let’s just see who we happen to have available on this bananas slate tonight… (‘banana’ slate or ‘bananas’ slate? Or slate of bananas? You get it, it’s a crazy fruit kind of slate, plural or not)

THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE MONDPOCALYPSE

• Jacob Misiorowski vs. Mets – 39.6% K, 6.4% BB, 1.62 ERA, 2.20 SIERA
• Dylan Cease vs. Rays – 36.9% K, 11% BB, 2.56 ERA, 2.96 SIERA
• Cristopher Sanchez vs. Dodgers – 27.4% K, 4.8% BB, 2.62 ERA, 2.85 SIERA
• Jacob deGrom vs. White Sox – 30.4% K, 5.5% BB, 3.49 ERA, 3.02 SIERA

These four elite aces are all priced between $10,000 – $12,000 on DK and between $9,800 – $11,200 on FD. There are other good pitchers as we start to move down the salary board, but if there were no salary cap, I would just play these four and be done with it. There is no point at which I would overthink any of these pitchers if I can afford them. But just for fun, let’s start by trying to find some silly reason why we don’t absolutely have to play these aces.

The first interesting note is that both Jacob Misiorowski and Jacob deGrom were scratched from their last starts before the All-Star Break, and neither has started since July 7th. They called it “arm fatigue” for Misiorowski and a “mild glute strain” for deGrom, but honestly, I think the teams just saw a chance to give their aces an extra long mid-season rest and just made up some fancy terms to have an excuse for it. But while I don’t have any concerns with their health, there is at least some chance that they don’t pitch quite as deep into the game as they normally would.

Dylan Cease has also not pitched since July 8th, although he pitched a 3-strikeout inning in the All-Star Game. Of the three, just based on the overall way they’ve been handled this season, I have the least amount of concern with the workload for Cease. He has gone over 100 pitches in 5 straight starts, and I would expect the same here. I will also say that while I’m trying to make some case why maybe Misiorowski and/or deGrom won’t get a full leash, the fact is they are both elite-enough pitchers to dominate whether it’s 85 pitches or 100 pitches.

The case against Cristopher Sanchez is simply from the matchup against the Dodgers. But then, while it’s not ideal, Sanchez is so silly-elite against lefties that I have to side with him over the best Dodgers hitters, and I’m not avoiding him because of the Dodgers righties.

None of these four aces have absolutely ideal matchups, but they all have matchup-proof skill sets. Among them, obviously Misiorowski has the most obscene talent, coming in with a 47.6% K rate against lefties this season. 47.6%? Cut it out. Nobody cares if the Mets are a high-strikeout team or not. Even if we figured on more like 90 pitches than 100 pitches for the Miz, he’s the SP1. This is especially true on FD where the salaries are more bunched. On DK, he should still be the chalk, but that $12,000 salary should also keep his ownership relatively in check, making him a priority for me.

I’m also going to call Cease a priority. The dude has 7+ strikeouts in 11 consecutive starts, along with that endless pitch-count leash and almost no power allowed. He’s not the Miz, mostly because of the sometimes sketchy control to lefties, but they have the same ceiling. Tampa does have patient lefties, enough to make the DK price gap look about right, but if there is any way I can afford them both, that’s what I’m going to do.

Sanchez is the ace who is almost certainly going to be overlooked from an ownership perspective. He’s more expensive than Cease on DK, and they are the same salary on FD. With higher strikeouts from Cease in addition to Sanchez facing the Dodgers, this is just a spot to consider throwing some MME darts to get different.

deGrom is the cheapest of these four, and that also looks correct. He is the one I have the most concerns about regarding the workload, and while he has the best strikeout matchup of the four, he’s also the only one of these four with power issues, and he faces a White Sox team whose active roster ranks 2nd in the league in ISO against RHP. I’m still more than happy to play deGrom in any lineup on any site, but he is a clear step behind Misiorowski and Cease.

WE’RE NOT DONE YET

• George Kirby vs. Reds – 21.5% K, 5.3% BB, 3.76 ERA, 3.79 SIERA
• Braxton Ashcraft at Yankees – 27.8% K, 5.9% BB, 3.49 ERA, 3.26 SIERA
• Jose Soriano vs. Cardinals – 24.7% K, 11.4% BB, 3.49 ERA, 4.11 SIERA
• Ryan Weathers vs. Pirates – 26.9% K, 6.6% BB, 4.15 ERA, 3.41 SIERA
• Emmet Sheehan at Phillies – 26.6% K, 7.4% BB, 4.81 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
• Payton Tolle vs. Orioles – 25.5% K, 7.3% BB, 3.11 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
• Freddy Peralta at Brewers – 22.3% K, 9.4% BB, 4.66 ERA, 4.29 SIERA
• Shane Baz at Red Sox – 20.5% K, 8.7% BB, 4.19 ERA, 4.44 SIERA
• Andrew Abbott at Mariners – 18.4% K, 10.5% BB, 4.11 ERA, 4.93 SIERA

If we didn’t have any of those top four pitchers available, there would still be plenty to like on this slate.

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