Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Sunday 7/5

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2026-07-05 14:39:27 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 5, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Sunday! I’m going to be filling in for Cards today on this early Sunday slate. More often than not, it is FD that starts a slate early to add some extra games, but the sites have flipped roles today. DK is starting at 12:30pm ET to add 3 early games, making a 9-game slate. FD is starting at the more standard 1:35pm ET with just a 6-game slate. This will make things pretty different on each site, but we’ll sort through all that as we get into it.

Sunday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

We have a decent top tier, although all of these pitchers lack the kind of consistency you’d like to see when spending up. I’m going to use $8,000 on DK as the cut-off mark between tiers today:

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Joe Ryan at Yankees – 28.2% K, 5.5% BB, 3.61 ERA, 3.23 SIERA
• Ryan Weathers vs. Twins – 26.7% K, 6.8% BB, 4.08 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
• Nolan McLean at Braves (DK) – 28.5% K, 9.1% BB, 3.78 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
• Kyle Bradish at Reds (DK) – 24% K, 11.8% BB, 3.77 ERA, 4.32 SIERA
• Casey Mize at Rangers – 26.9% K, 5.5% BB, 2.63 ERA, 3.43 SIERA
• Tanner Bibee vs. White Sox – 20.2% K, 7.1% BB, 3.69 ERA, 4.27 SIERA

From the perspective of strikeouts, walks, and SIERA, the group of Joe Ryan, Ryan Weathers, Nolan McLean, and Casey Mize are pretty tightly bunched. They have all shown upside on multiple occasions, but none of them are quite consistent enough to be considered elite aces. I don’t see any clear way to separate them based on skill set or consistency (or even ceiling), so let’s look at the matchups and see if that helps. Using today’s projected lineups, this is what we find:

Yankees vs. RHP (Ryan) – 21.3% K, 10.9% BB, .188 ISO, .321 wOBA
Twins vs. LHP (Weathers) – 19.7% K, 10.3% BB, .123 ISO, .305 wOBA
Braves vs. RHP (McLean) – 20.7% K, 7.8% BB, .172 ISO, .326 wOBA
Rangers vs. RHP (Mize) – 21.3% K, 8.5% BB, .150 ISO, .320 wOBA

Even these matchups don’t give me a clear best way to separate these pitchers. I guess I would say that since the main issue for Ryan Weathers has been home runs, the lower power of the Twins is enough to call him the SP1. But I can also say I’m definitely not going to go super heavy on any of these pitchers, and seeing the big ups and downs from Weathers over the past few starts shows why.

Next, I’m siding with Casey Mize against the Rangers. I would assume he sees at least 5 lefties, where he’s up at a 28.8% K rate with very limited hard contact, leading to an .081 ISO. He’s given up a little more power to righties as he did last year, but the Texas righties mostly lack fly balls and barrels enough for me to call him the SP2.

Joe Ryan has gotten better against lefties this season, up to the same 28.1% K rate as he has against righties, but he still has all the fly balls and hard contact as always. He has a low HR/FB rate without having a low barrel rate, and that makes me nervous against a team with as much left-handed power as the Yankees. That leaves him a step behind Weathers and Mize.

Nolan McLean has gotten the strikeouts back over his last few starts, and the overall skill set still shows the ability to limit hard contact, particularly to righties. His matchup is a little better than Ryan’s, and I think I’ll call him the SP3.

Officially, I rank these top pitchers Weathers, Mize, McLean, and Ryan, but I don’t feel super strongly about it, and I will be spread out among them.

Below them, we find Kyle Bradish, who has shown the same ceiling as those other top pitchers, albeit with even less consistency with his wonky control. If you look back over his last 10 starts, you’ll find a broad spectrum, including 3 starts of 9+ strikeouts, 6 quality starts, 6 starts with 3+ walks, and 4 starts of 4 or fewer strikeouts. It’s just a wild guess as to what we’re going to get here. The matchup is also a wild card, with the Reds being a high-strikeout lineup with plenty of power. This is a guy I would want to get into the MME bucket on DK, but the control keeps him a step below the aforementioned options.

Tanner Bibee is not all that much different from these other pitchers, with an occasional strikeout bump, but overall, he is a sizeable step below these other pitchers in strikeout ability and not any more consistent than any of them. The White Sox are a lineup with a lot of power, while Bibee is allowing a .195 ISO on 11.4% barrels to lefties. His salary is more useful, and he does have the ability to pitch deep into games, but I just don’t love the skill set for the matchup. He’s fine because of the salary, but he misses my primary pool.

CHEAPER PITCHING

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