Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Monday 9/1

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-09-01 14:21:55 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, Happy Labor Day, Happy September! We have a busy day on this holiday Monday with a 10-game slate on DK starting at 1:05 PM ET and a 7-game slate on FD. The slates are very different, as the DK slate includes the Coors Field with the Giants parading into Colorado to celebrate all of the nonsense that is the Rockies pitching staff.

There is also a light 3-game evening slate, and we’ll have Expert tags and analysis available in our MLB DFS optimizer, LineupHQ, if you’re going to stick around for that.

Editor’s Note: Looking for more places to play? Check out our Sleeper promo code and PrizePicks promo code, two of the best DFS apps available today.

Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

The pricing is bunched up pretty tight on DK, with 9 pitchers between $8,000-$9,500. There is also not a lot of spend-up offense, so while salary still matters, it’s closer to a pick’em than we’ve had in a while on DK.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Hunter Greene vs. Blue Jays – 30.8% K, 5.2% BB, 2.81 ERA, 3.07 SIERA
• Sonny Gray vs. A’s – 26.8% K, 4.5% BB, 4.19 ERA, 3.22 SIERA
• Jacob Misiorowski vs. Phillies – 36.9% K, 11.9% BB, 4.33 ERA, 3.10 SIERA
• Spencer Strider at Cubs – 25.2% K, 9.1% BB, 4.95 ERA, 3.95 SIERA
• Chris Bassitt at Reds – 22.8% K, 6.8% BB, 4.14 ERA, 3.85 SIERA
• Luis Morales at Cardinals – 25% K, 11.4% BB, 1.19 ERA, 4.30 SIERA
• Brayan Bello vs. Guardians – 18.4% K, 8% BB, 2.99 ERA, 4.41 SIERA
• Sean Manaea at Tigers – 29.8% K, 4.5% BB, 5.01 ERA, 2.94 SIERA
• Parker Messick at Red Sox – 3rd career start

I consider Hunter Greene to be the best pitcher on this slate, but the Blue Jays are the worst possible matchup in the league for strikeouts. I’m still more than willing to play Greene, but this is not some high-priority play in this particular matchup, so let’s see what we find next.

Sonny Gray continues to be extremely consistent with his strikeouts and walks, while also continuing to hover around 90 pitches. That means he can last anywhere from 5 to 7 innings depending on how BABIP treats him. A matchup with the A’s always has some power risk, but they also have 4-5 higher strikeout bats in the lineup, which is a clear difference from Greene’s matchup. While I prefer Greene’s overall skill set, I lean to Gray as the SP1 here.

Jacob Misiorowski finally saw his pitch count back up to a relevant level in his last start, which resulted in a great 10-K outing against Arizona. While I still have questions about his control and pitch count, he clearly belongs in the SP1 conversation based on his strikeout upside. He’s been especially lights out against lefties this season with a silly 44% K rate, so this helps against a good Phillies team whose best hitters are lefties. At this moment, Misiorowski is someone I want to play the ownership game with. There is such a wide range of outcomes and still so much unknown that I want to be underweight when he’s chalk, but I’ll lean in a little more when he’s off the radar. The early projections do not appear to like him much, so if that doesn’t change, I’m playing him ahead of both Greene and Gray. There is still downside here, but I love the ceiling.

I don’t know what happened to Spencer Strider, but the guy wearing his jersey is not him. He has just 2-3 strikeouts in 4 of his last 5 starts and has been shellacked too many times to feel good about. Against the Cubs, I’m going to pass on this. I hope the real Strider shows up, but I need to see it happen. I assume he’s going to keep getting some ownership, making me even more intent on fading.

Chris Bassitt probably gets lost in the shuffle today at $8,600 on DK. That does seem a little too close to the top pitchers with his much lower 22.8% K rate, but he’s shown some occasional ceiling, and he’s still a steady, good real-life pitcher. Even at home, the Reds don’t scare me much, and it’s a better matchup than what the spend-up aces have. He doesn’t quite make the primary pool with Gray and Misiorowski, but he’s really only a small step below them and in my MME pool.

Luis Morales feels overpriced at $8,500, but this is a kid just 22 innings into his career who has been outstanding in his last 3 starts. He has allowed 2 runs with an 18:4 K:BB ratio in his last 18 innings after seeing a 29.2% K rate with a 9.6% BB rate at Triple-A. He has the best matchup of any pitcher we’ve looked at so far, with the Cardinals lineup getting more watered down by the day. Morales’ skill set still has control question marks and potential power issues, but based on what we’ve seen so far, I think he’s good. Like Bassitt, the salary should keep him completely off the radar, and I think the matchup looks good enough that I’m putting him ahead of Bassitt. I still slightly prefer Gray and Misiorowski, but I’m going to be spreading out earlier than I expected.

Brayan Bello is yet another pretty good pitcher whose salary looks higher than it should be but on further inspection is probably right. His control, ground balls, and efficiency keep him piling up quality starts, and this is another decent matchup. This slate just gets more muddled the further we go. All these guys are pretty good, and I feel fine about having any of them in my lineup. But before we throw another guy like Bello in the pool, let’s look at the one guy in this $8,000 range who has clearer strikeout ability.

Sean Manaea is up closer to Hunter Greene range with his 29.8% K rate and elite control to go with it.

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