Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Thursday 4/16

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2026-04-16 14:45:26 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 April 16, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Thursday! We have a lighter MLB schedule today with a very early start. DK is running a 6-game slate starting at 12:35 PM ET, while FD is adding one additional game for a 7-game slate with the same early start time. We’ve got a couple games with some MLB weather, most notable in the KC/DET game, but for now, I’m writing this and building my lineups as if everything works out.

Thursday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

We have a pitching slate with a very clear top 5 on DK and top 6 on FD. Everything beyond that top tier looks like random cheap dart-throwing that I’d love to avoid.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Max Fried vs. Angels – 23.1% K, 6.2% BB, 2.74 ERA, 3.63 SIERA
• Kris Bubic at Tigers – 25.6% K, 8.5% BB, 2.55 ERA, 3.76 SIERA
• Chase Burns vs. Giants – 32.9% K, 9.3% BB, 4.22 ERA, 3.07 SIERA
• Braxton Ashcraft vs. Nationals – 25.4% K, 8.1% BB, 2.60 ERA, 3.48 SIERA
• Landen Roupp at Reds – 22% K, 9.2% BB, 3.72 ERA, 4.20 SIERA
• Jack Leiter at A’s (FD) – 23.8% K, 10.3% BB, 3.95 ERA, 4.29 SIERA

This slate is very interesting right away, with the best real-life pitcher over the long run, Max Fried, also being far and away the lowest-strikeout pitcher to open this season. Fried continues to be great in reality with a 1.93 ERA, but it’s so tough to get thrilled about the most-expensive pitcher on both sites being a guy with a 19% K rate through 4 starts. Even the ground balls haven’t been above average this season, and he’s just living on the low walks and a silly-low .205 BABIP and 0% HR/FB rate. He’s been so good for so long, I’m willing to say he can be better than average with batted balls, but there is no way around saying he’s been very lucky so far. Maybe he can start to see the strikeouts perk up a little in this matchup, but against 8 righties, even with all their strikeouts, I am not certain about that. This is one of those situations where I say he’ll almost certainly be real-life good again, but assuming he’s chalk, I am personally going to…

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