Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Saturday 3/29

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-03-29 18:05:34 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! We’ve got a busy day with games all 30 teams in action throughout the day. The sites have split things up a little differently, so I’m going to focus on the daytime DK slate which has 9-games starting at 1:05pm ET. FD has split those slates up into two different slates, so I’m just going to discuss those 9 games all together from a DK perspective. The main evening slate is the same 6-game slate on both sites starting at 7:05pm ET.

With the DK slate starting so early, it’s likely we won’t have all the starting lineups in by the time lock hits at 1:05, so be sure to keep up with the MLB starting lineups page as the day progresses.

Saturday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We’ve got a big old tangled mess of decent pitchers on this early slate with no real value to speak of. It looks like a spread-it-out kind of day, but let’s dig in and see what we find.

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A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WITH ARMS

• Joe Ryan at Cardinals – 27.3% K, 4.3% BB, 3.60 ERA, 3.28 SIERA
• Max Fried vs. Brewers – 23.2% K, 8% BB, 3.25 ERA, 3.61 SIERA
• Max Scherzer vs. Orioles – 22.6% K, 5.6% BB, 3.95 ERA, 4.01 SIERA
• Seth Lugo vs. Guardians – 21.7% K, 5.7% BB, 3.00 ERA, 3.94 SIERA
• Zack Littell vs. Rockies – 21.5% K, 4.7% BB, 3.63 ERA, 3.99 SIERA
• Jesus Luzardo at Nationals – 21.2% K, 8% BB, 5.00 ERA, 4.33 SIERA
• Nick Lodolo vs. Giants – 24.7% K, 7.5% BB, 4.76 ERA, 3.78 SIERA
• Nestor Cortes at Yankees – 22.8% K, 5.5% BB, 3.77 ERA, 4.02 SIERA
• Erick Fedde vs. Twins – 21.2% K, 7.2% BB, 3.30 ERA, 4.19 SIERA
• Jose Soriano at White Sox – 20.7% K, 9.6% BB, 3.42 ERA, 4.03 SIERA
• Justin Verlander at Reds – 18.7% K, 6.8% BB. 5.48 ERA, 4.80 SIERA
• Gavin Williams at Royals – 23.8% K, 9.6% BB, 4.86 ERA, 4.19 SIERA

This is a messy tangle of decent but not great pitchers for this early slate. The one stand out from a skill set perspective is Joe Ryan, and though it’s not a great strikeout matchup, I’m starting with him as my SP1. He’s far from any sort of lock button after missing the end of 2024 with a shoulder strain, but he looked fine in spring and got up to 81 pitches last weekend. When there is nothing to be certain of, just give me the guy with the both the highest strikeout rate and the lowest walk rate among today’s pitchers.

After Ryan, if salary is no issue, I’d lean to the long-term consistency of Max Fried. However, I’m not going out of my way to spend $9,200 on a moderate strikeout pitcher if I don’t comfortably have the salary. That means more likely I’ll be pairing Ryan with someone cheaper in a better matchup. That gives us names like Zack Littell, Jesus Luzardo, and Jose Soriano. Among that group, I’d say Zack Littell looks like my preference based on the combination of his control and the home matchup against Colorado. Basically everyone on this slate after Ryan is just an average at best strikeout pitcher, so I’m content with a 21.5% K rate that comes with almost no walks. The Rockies offer a ton of added strikeout upside from their lineup, so Littell has some chance to hit the higher end of his range.

Jesus Luzardo is supposed to be an upside pitcher, but after strikeout rates between 28-30% in 2022-2023, he fell all the way back to 21.2% in 12 starts in an injury-riddled 2024 season. He is reportedly fully healthy, so I’m cautiously optimistic that he returns to that previous level that would put him up with Ryan in strikeout ability. It’s an unknown until we see him pitch a few times, but this is the kind of slate where it’s worth chasing a maybe. He is my SP4.

If there’s another upside pitcher who could break this slate other than Ryan or Luzardo, it’s probably Nick Lodolo. He was a 30% K pitcher as a rookie in 2022, but he battled some injuries and managed just a 24.7% K rate in 21 starts last season. We saw some flashes of the old strikeout ability down the stretch and looked good in spring. There is always going to be power risk in his home games, but it’s an average strikeout matchup, and I am putting him as my SP5 but keeping in mind there is essentially no difference between #2-#5.

I love using pitchers against the White Sox, but Jose Soriano is not a thrilling name even amongst this group of pitchers. He flashed some moderate upside at times last season, and what I like about him most is a 60% ground ball rate. Between the strikeouts and lack of power in the White Sox lineup, I’m quite content playing Soriano for $7,100 on DK. I prefer Littell, but I will go with Soriano ahead of all the slightly better pitchers in tougher matchups coming up next.

If you just scan the list of names, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander might jump out as the top choices. Based on long term history, they absolutely would be, and if we could play 2019 DFS, this would be an extremely easy slate. But these dudes are old and both basically fell apart in 2024. Justin Verlander slipped all the way down to an 18.7% K rate, his third straight season of steady decline. Maybe there’s magic left, but I am considering him to be done until he shows otherwise. I’m rooting for him, but I am not touching him in DFS until he gives me a reason to. Max Scherzer didn’t fall quite as far as Verlander, but he was still way down at a career-low 22.6% K rate in 9 starts surrounding injuries. Now he’s got another thumb issue and only got up to 62 pitches in his last Spring Training start. I have a little more hope for a rebound from him, but I’m not chasing it in this opening start against Baltimore. The old men are off my list for today.

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