Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Thursday 9/17

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

Created Sep 17, 2026

Last Updated 2026-09-17 14:57:18 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 September 17, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Thursday! We’ve got a slow day in MLB with just a 5-game main slate beginning at 7:15 PM ET. While it’s a small slate, it’s pretty well spread out with a fair amount of pitchers and offenses to choose from. I’m seeing a couple favorites on each side, but I’m hopeful that at least on the hitting side, we’re not going to end up with any overwhelming chalk.

Thursday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

I end up with 6 pitchers in my pool on this slate. The salaries are bunched up enough on FD that they are barely an issue, while there is a little gap between the top four and a couple of salary savers on DK.

• Taj Bradley at Angels – 27.3% K, 10.3% BB, 3.81 ERA, 3.87 SIERA
• Sonny Gray at Rangers – 22% K, 6.6% BB, 2.76 ERA, 3.85 SIERA
• Nolan McLean vs. Phillies – 26.5% K, 9.5% BB, 3.24 ERA, 3.76 SIERA
• Walbert Urena vs. Twins – 22.6% K, 11.6% BB, 2.88 ERA, 4.31 SIERA
• Aaron Nola at Mets – 23.9% K, 8% BB, 4.69 ERA, 3.93 SIERA
• Framber Valdez at White Sox – 17% K, 8.4% BB, 4.01 ERA, 4.40 SIERA

Taj Bradley is certainly not a safe pitcher with no downside, but he is the highest-strikeout pitcher on this slate, and he’s facing the highest-strikeout opponent on this slate. Sometimes, you don’t have to make things harder than they are. Can he have a bad game as chalk? Sure, of course. Is he the most likely to score the most points with the highest ceiling on this slate? Absolutely. At only $9,500 on both sites, he’s my SP1, and I’ll let everyone else do the overthinking.

Nolan McLean is still a good pitcher, but he has clearly slowed down as the season progresses, falling to a 19% K rate with 12.2% walks over his last 6 starts as he’s far surpassed the most innings in his career. I don’t think he’s just done by any means, and he’s in the conversation for top pitcher on the slate, but for me, in this low strikeout matchup filled with lefties, he’s nowhere close to Bradley, and I’m not sure he’d even be my SP2 if salary allows. Let’s look at the next couple of options before deciding on that.

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