Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Saturday 4/5

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-04-05 17:03:34 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 Saturday and War Eagle! We have yet another wild day with games and slates spread out all over the place and plenty of weather concerns to make things even trickier. My focus will be the main evening slate, which contains the same 7 games on both sites. Before we get to that, I’ll touch on the early DK slate, which is also a 7-gamer, starting at 1:10pm ET. The trick with that early slate is that two of the games (Yankees-Pirates and Cardinals-Red Sox) start the day at Orange on the MLB weather report. For now, I’m going to include those games in my rankings, but I am personally not planning on using them in my lineups unless things clear up significantly.

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Saturday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

This is a pretty weak pitching slate, but I see nine options worth mentioning:

• Aaron Nola vs. Dodgers – 24% K, 6.1% BB, 3.57 ERA, 3.68 SIERA
• Roki Sasaki at Phillies – 3rd career start
• Nick Pivetta at Cubs – 28.9% K, 6.1% BB, 4.14 ERA, 3.31 SIERA
• Bailey Ober vs. Astros – 26.9% K, 6.1% BB, 3.98 ERA, 3.5 SIERA
• Spencer Arrighetti at Twins – 27.1% K, 10.3% BB, 4.53 ERA, 3.93 SIERA
• Eduardo Rodriguez at Nationals – 21% K, 8.5% BB, 8.5% BB, 5.04 ERA, 4.40 SIERA
• Matt Boyd vs. Padres – 27.7% K, 7.8% BB, 2.72 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
• Michael Wacha vs. Orioles – 21.2% K, 6.6% BB, 3.35 ERA, 4.17 SIERA
• Mitchell Parker vs. Diamondbacks – 20.6% K, 6.7% BB, 4.29 ERA, 4.25 SIERA

The first easy cut here is Roki Sasaki. I think he’ll figure it out, but he’s been an absolute disaster in his first two starts, and I need to see improvement before I consider him. I’m also crossing Michael Wacha off the list against Baltimore. After a shaky first start with four walks, I don’t feel the need to chase him in a tougher matchup.

Up top, Aaron Nola is the ace with the longest track record, but he’s also the most expensive pitcher, and he is facing the Dodgers. He has a skill set that does not stand out on this slate. It was encouraging to see 8 strikeouts in his first start, but they came with decreased velocity, and quite simply, I am skeptical of improvement from him after back-to-back years of declining strikeouts. He’s fine even in a tough matchup, but we can get higher strikeout pitchers at lower salaries who aren’t facing the Dodgers.

We have another pitcher-friendly day at Wrigley Field, moving both Nick Pivetta and Matt Boyd up the list. The great 2024 numbers from Boyd came in just 39 innings, so take them with a grain of salt, but these are the perfect conditions for a fly-ball pitcher like Boyd. He’s really not a tremendously different pitcher than Imanaga, who had a solid day against the Padres yesterday, and I would expect a similar style of game today. There is not huge upside here, but I’m very interested in a fly-ball pitcher against San Diego in these conditions for $7,800. But if I’m only playing one of these pitchers, I side with Nick Pivetta, who has more strikeouts in his matchup after two straight seasons above a 28% K rate. His strikeouts and velocity were down a tick in his first start, but he made up for that with no walks, leading to a 7-inning shutout. I don’t love that he’s chalk, and this is not an all-in type of pitcher, but Pivetta is my SP1.

For the second straight season, Bailey Ober was shellacked, maybe even chunnelcaked, in his opening start. After the start, it was revealed that Ober had been sick, so maybe that played a part in his diminished velocity. However, he was also down in his velocity in the spring, so there could be something more to it. If we had a stronger pitching slate, I’d be out on Ober for today, but it dries up quick enough that he makes it into the pool. I have enough concern to place him below both Pivetta and Boyd.

I think I’m also going to play Ober’s opponent, Spencer Arrighetti, ahead of him. It’s all going to come down to the control with Arrighetti, and it’s just a wild card until we get further into the season. He did improve some in the second half last season, and was OK with just 2 walks in 6 innings in his opener. The matchup is neutral for strikeouts, and while I’d prefer Ober if I trusted the health, at this moment, I side with Arrighetti.

Eduardo Rodriguez had an injury riddled 2024 season with just 50 innings, so I’m viewing him more on his 2023 numbers, which were slightly better with a 23% K rate and 7.7% walks. He’s nothing amazing, but this is an above-average pitcher against a Washington team that looks like a far better matchup for left-handed pitching. He’s not quite cheap enough to really matter, and I prefer Boyd at just $200 more, but Rodriguez is right in the thick of the conversation with all these other pitchers.

The one guy who is cheap enough to matter is Mitchell Parker. The problem is the matchup, although Arizona is at least slightly less amazing against lefties. But it’s still 6 low-strikeout bats and plenty of power in the projected lineup, and Parker has a long leash after throwing 93 pitches in his opener. If he could get some help from BABIP and HR/FB, I could see him being DFS relevant. He’s in 7th place on my list, but he’s also the only pitcher below $7,600 I’m willing to consider. I don’t think salary matters enough to play him in primary lineups, but officially, he makes the pool just based on being the only cheap option.

EARLY PITCHING CLIFF NOTES

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