Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Thursday 5/8

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-05-08 15:32:09 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 slow day with games spread out all over the place. There is an early 4-game slate that starts at 1:10 PM ET, which has a lack of strong pitching and a Coors Field game. We will have Expert tags and analysis for that slate in our MLB DFS optimizer, LineupHQ.

The main slate that we’ll be digging into here is a pitching-heavy 4-game slate at the usual 7:05 PM ET start time.

One housekeeping note — I will be out tomorrow, but Justin Van Zuiden (aka stlcardinals84) will be here to walk you through the Friday slate with his Covering The Bases. My daughter is graduating from college this weekend (I’m not old, you’re old!), so I will be back with you all on Monday after the festivities.

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

All 8 pitchers on this slate are pretty good, and the salaries look spread out appropriately enough to consider all of them.

EIGHT GOOD PITCHERS

• Yoshinobu Yamamoto at Diamondbacks – 32% K, 8.5% BB, 0.90 ERA, 2.62 SIERA
• Jesus Luzardo at Rays – 27.6% K, 6.5% BB, 1.94 ERA, 3.10 SIERA
• Spencer Schwellenbach vs. Reds – 21.6% K, 4.1% BB, 3.92 ERA, 3.37 SIERA
• Chris Bassitt at Angels – 25.7% K, 4.2% BB, 2.95 ERA, 3.12 SIERA
• Brandon Pfaadt vs. Dodgers – 20.7% K, 4.1% BB, 3.79 ERA, 3.56 SIERA
• Ryan Pepiot vs. Phillies – 21% K, 8.4% BB, 4.23 ERA, 4.14 SIERA
• Jose Soriano vs. Blue Jays – 18.5% K, 9.5% BB, 3.83 ERA, 3.73 SIERA
• Nick Lodolo at Braves – 17.8% K, 4% BB, 3.27 ERA, 4.00 SIERA

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is clearly the most talented pitcher on this slate, but he’s also $10,800 on FanDuel, $10,000 on DraftKings, and facing Arizona. He’s simply been elite and matchup-proof, but we can also say that his strikeouts have not been consistent. It’s very tempting to call him the SP1, knowing he’s unlikely to be the highest-owned pitcher, but I still just can’t quite get there against Arizona. They are such a good lineup that I can’t expect him to land on the upper end of his strikeout range here. It’s certainly possible, and I’d gladly play him anywhere if the salary is no issue at all, but I am not prioritizing him.

On both sites, Jesus Luzardo has the next-highest salary, and he has earned that. Like Yamamoto, he has been great this season, allowing 3 runs or fewer in every start and looking like the ace he was back in 2022-2023. He has a far better matchup than Yamamoto, with a stunning lack of power upside in the Rays lineup against LHP. It’s close, but I prefer Luzardo.

I expect that the chalk on this slate is going to be Spencer Schwellenbach, particularly on DK where he’s down at $7,700. His strikeouts have dropped off considerably this season, with just 1 start over 6 Ks. However, his SwStr% is actually higher than it was last season when he posted a 25.4% K rate, and both his velocity and stuff+ are a slight tick up from last season.

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