Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Monday 5/11

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2026-05-11 21:10:29 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 give you his musings on the May 11, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Monday! We kick off the new week with a small 6-game slate on DK that starts earlier than usual (6:10 PM ET). On FD, we have the more typical 7:07 PM ET start time, but it will just be a 4-game slate. On both sites, there is a very small group of obvious chalky offense and a muddled top tier of good, but not quite elite, pitching. We should be all clear on the MLB weather front, so let’s dive in and see what we find.

Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

The DK slate has 8 pitchers all within a pretty tight range of skill sets, and 6 of those pitchers are on the FD slate. The salaries are all bunched up enough that I’m putting it all into one tier:

• Kevin Gausman vs. Rays – 24.2% K, 6.1% BB, 3.49 ERA, 3.74 SIERA
• George Kirby at Astros – 24.2% K, 5.6% BB, 3.86 ERA, 3.50 SIERA
• Nathan Eovaldi vs. Diamondbacks – 25.3% K, 4.5% BB, 2.38 ERA, 3.21 SIERA
• Ryan Weathers at Orioles (DK) – 25.3% K, 6.8% BB, 3.51 ERA, 3.57 SIERA
• Joey Cantillo vs. Angels (DK) – 25.7% K, 10.8% BB, 3.27 ERA, 3.98 SIERA
• Michael Soroka at Rangers – 25.3% K, 7.4% BB, 4.41 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
• Drew Rasmussen at Blue Jays – 22.4% K, 5.9% BB, 2.80 ERA, 3.74 SIERA
• Peter Lambert vs. Mariners – 24.7% K, 11.8% BB, 2.42 ERA, 4.13 SIERA

Using the 2025-2026 numbers listed above, it’s pretty remarkable how close all of these pitchers are. Other than the slight drop-off of Drew Rasmussen’s 22.4% K rate, all of the other 7 have strikeout rates between 24-26%, and this season, Rasmussen sits right in the middle of that as well (25.2%). Even using just 2026 numbers, there are only a couple guys who have are landing outside of that range, with Ryan Weathers up at 28.5% and George Kirby down at 19.1%.

Before I get into this group, let me just briefly mention who I’m not including. The Giants’ Trevor McDonald was awesome last week in his first start of the season, and he also looked really good in his brief 15 innings last season. However, the minor-league numbers do not back up this kind of performance, and he’s no longer down at minimum salary. I’m not willing to play him against the Dodgers tonight. If he continues to pitch well, then maybe we’ll reevaluate his skills before his next start. I also have no interest in his opponent, Roki Sasaki, who continues to underwhelm, with a 19.4% K rate and 11.2% walks this season. He’s also allowed a slew of home runs on top of the weak underlying numbers. I like the matchup, but I simply don’t trust these skills. Brandon Young costing $8,000 on DK against the Yankees is hysterical.

OK, back to the playable octet, also apparently known as an ‘eightsome,’ which is a great word and makes far more sense than ‘octet.’ It’s probably worth noting that in Egyptian mythology, a group of eight deities is known as an ‘ogdoad.’ These pitchers are not deities, but that it a pretty great word as well. I feel like we are all learning some useful stuff here today!

The most-expensive pitcher on FD (and 2nd most expensive on DK) is George Kirby. I kind of get it based on the long-term skills and his real-life efficiency and consistency, but this guy is really not a DFS ace. He has been between 4-6 strikeouts in 7 of his 8 starts this season, and with that, he has topped 19 DK points in just 2 of those 8 starts. A matchup with Houston seems very likely to be more of the same. They aren’t great, they aren’t terrible, and they only have 3-4 high-strikeout bats in the projected lineup. Kirby should be good and is unlikely to be great. My initial thought is I don’t need to spend this salary for this kind of skill set, but let’s see what else we find.

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