Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Thursday 6/19

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-06-19 16:24:21 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’ve got a split slate kind of day with an early slate starting at 1:05 p.m. ET and an evening slate starting a bit earlier than usual at 6:40 p.m. ET. The early slate is a 6-gamer on DK and includes a 7th game on FD.

There is a big, huge question mark hanging over this early slate, as the one MLB weather concern, of course, has to be in the Tarik Skubal game. I am going to just write this as if the game is safe and plays cleanly, but we’re going to need to get another look at this closer to lock. The good news is that while it’s a downgrade, you could just pivot from Skubal down to Carlos Rodon if the Detroit game ends up looking any worse as we get towards lock, so for now, I’ll have Skubal in my lineups.

Don’t forget to look at our MLB DFS optimizier, LineupHQ, for expert tags and analysis for the early slate as well.

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Thursday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We have a clear top of the slate ace in Tarik Skubal, who is appropriately priced up to $12,000 on DK today. We also have at least a couple decent options in all pricing tiers, so I’m going to separate them into three tiers based on salary.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Tarik Skubal vs. Pirates – 32.7% K, 2.7% BB, 1.99 ERA, 2.30 SIERA
• Carlos Rodon vs. Angels – 30.1% K, 9% BB, 3.01 ERA, 3.24 SIERA
• Kevin Gausman vs. Diamondbacks (FD only) – 24.7% K, 6.5% BB, 4.08 ERA, 3.56 SIERA

Tarik Skubal is in a class of his own on any slate he’s on. DK has priced him all the way up to $12,000, which is completely reasonable based on this elite skill set. On FD, he’s only $10,700, which is high, but probably not high enough. I think the only real discussion here is if we need to prioritize him over Carlos Rodon, who is $1,300 cheaper on DK and $900 cheaper on FD.

There is no question at all that Skubal is better than Rodon and more consistent than Rodon. The question for me is if Skubal is more of the guy we saw in 2024 and for his last 3 starts or more of the guy we saw in a 6-game stretch in April and May when he struck out 11+ batters 4 times in games. The vast majority of last season, Skubal was much more about consistency than he was about spiking huge, must-have starts. He only reached double-digit strikeouts three times in 31 games last season. He was almost always sitting between 7-9 strikeouts, which is fantastic when adding in the elite control and easy innings, but that sort of thing is not a must-play at $12,000.

I am completely guessing here, but I’m still landing on the side of thinking he’s more likely to be that 7-9 strikeout guy. He can and should easily shut down the Pirates for 7+ innings, and if I have the salary, I would gladly lock button him. However, I will also say that Carlos Rodon has very close to the same upside as Skubal, and while his matchup is riskier overall, there are even more strikeouts available against the Angels. I end up thinking that the salary gap is just right here. Skubal is obviously the SP1, but I am willing to start with Rodon if that’s what I need to make everything else work.

My initial look at this slate is telling me that I am going to be able to get Skubal in most lineups, but I am not calling him a lock button at this point. After we look at the cheaper pitching options, it will be easier to decide what to do with Skubal on DK.

On FD, we also add Kevin Gausman to the mix, and he is all the way down at $9,100. His control has sputtered recently, and he is not in the same class of strikeout pitcher as Skubal or Rodon. Adding in the far worse matchup, I don’t have Gausman in the primary pool today.

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