Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Thursday 8/28

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-08-28 13:36:30 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 Thursday! We have an early start, with a 5-game slate at 1:05 PM ET. I don’t about you, but for me that is 12:05 PM, which is exactly lunchtime! I’m hoping lunch ends up more exciting than this hitting slate, because it’s a shaky one. We have some very obvious high-end pitching, and then it’s just a matter of salary cap and how far you want to spread out with bats.

There is also a small 3-game evening slate that starts at 6:45 PM ET, and we’ll have Expert tags and analysis available in our MLB DFS optimizer, LineupHQ, to get you pointed in the right direction if you’re playing tonight.

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.

Thursday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We have a clear SP1 with a great matchup and then two more top-tier pitchers who stand out ahead of the pack.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Garrett Crochet at Orioles – 31.2% K, 6.3% BB, 2.38 ERA, 2.91 SIERA
• Logan Webb vs. Cubs – 26% K, 5.4% BB, 3.13 ERA, 3.11 SIERA
• Shota Imanaga at Giants – 21% K, 4.9% BB, 3.03 ERA, 4.32 SIERA

Garrett Crochet is expensive, at $12,000 on DK and $11,000 on FD, but he should be expensive. He’s the best DFS pitcher on this slate by a huge margin, and he has a great matchup on top of the elite skills. The Orioles are just a completely different team against LHP, with only one single batter in the projected lineup below a 25% K rate this season. It may not be possible to play him in every single lineup at that salary, but I’m going to try.

The next two best pitchers, who are basically in their own tier below Crochet but ahead of everyone else, are Logan Webb and Shota Imanaga. They square off in San Francisco, which is more a ballpark boost for the fly balls of Imanaga. It’s also a much better matchup for Imanaga, with the Giants being a high-strikeout team against LHP. I consider Webb to be the better pitcher, but Imanaga has turned things around and is looking closer to the guy we saw in 2024 when he had a 25.1% K rate. In 7 starts since the All-Star Break, he’s at a 25.6% K rate with just 3% walks and is piling up easy innings. If they were the same salary, like they are on FD, I’d still give the slightest edge to Webb, but it’s basically a toss-up. On DK, where we’re getting a $1,000 discount on Imanaga, he’s my SP2.

MID-TIER AND CHEAPER OPTIONS

• Jason Alexander vs. Rockies – 17.7% K, 8.8% BB, 4.59 ERA, 4.62 SIERA
• Jose Quintana vs. Diamondbacks – 16.2% K, 8.4% BB, 3.32 ERA, 4.93 SIERA
• Cade Povich vs. Red Sox – 25.4% K, 8.6% BB, 5.13 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
• Miles Mikolas vs. Pirates – 14.9% K, 5.7% BB, 5.17 ERA, 4.83 SIERA

I would love to just play Crochet with one of Webb and Imanaga in every lineup, but with that salary on Crochet, we’re going to need something here at some point.

I would guess that Jason Alexander gets the most attention because of his matchup with the Rockies.

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