Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Tuesday 8/18

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

Created Aug 18, 2026

Last Updated 2026-08-18 15:48:33 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 August 18, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Tuesday! We have a 9-game slate that looks frighteningly similar to last night. We again have a very weak pitching slate with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of downside, and then we have the very obvious Dodgers in Coors Field, with a ton of other offense that is all kind of tangled up and unclear how to separate. I’ll do my best to get down to a manageable pool, but I think this is going to be one without a lot of clarity once you get past the Dodgers.

Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

The good news is that there is no pitching that costs more than $10,000 on either site, but the bad news is that the top tier, who are all above $8,000 on both sites, lacks any sure things. There is only one pitcher here who has anything resembling an elite skill set, and even that one comes with plenty of question marks.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Kyle Harrison vs. Mariners – 29.7% K, 6.3% BB, 3.47 ERA, 3.10 SIERA
• Bryce Miller at Brewers – 25.4% K, 4.8% BB, 3.39 ERA, 3.45 SIERA
• Kevin Gausman vs. White Sox – 23.5% K, 6.5% BB, 4.53 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
• Ranger Suarez vs. Diamondbacks – 24.7% K, 7% BB, 3.25 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
• Robbie Ray at Mets – 20.4% K, 11.7% BB, 3.28 ERA, 4.87 SIERA
• Tyler Mahle at Twins – 23.4% K, 8.7% BB, 4.64 ERA, 4.03 SIERA

Kyle Harrison has far and away the highest strikeout rate and best overall skill set of any pitcher on this slate. However, he’s also just 2 starts off the IL, in which he had one 10-K gem and one 8-run disaster. In his favor, if it matters, they are retroactively making 5 of those 8 runs unearned, so I guess that is good for fans of ERA, but also, whoop-dee doo! I would say that almost certainly both of those starts were outliers, but it’s not super easy to get thrilled about a chalky pitcher coming off a start where he allowed 3 HRs with just 3 strikeouts. The good news, I suppose, is that he threw 90 pitches in that disaster, so there shouldn’t be any pitch count leash here. But really, when you look at his game log all season, it’s a pretty wild roller coaster ride. This dude has 4 double-digit strikeout games and another 4 starts with 7-8 strikeouts, but he also has 8 starts with 3 or fewer strikeouts. That’s a pretty shocking number of poor games from a guy with a 29.7% K rate. I don’t know what to do other than throw up my hands and say I have no idea what to expect here. What I can say is that we don’t have a single pitcher anywhere on this slate without question marks, and I am comfortable saying that Harrison has the highest ceiling. So, kind of by default, he’s the SP1, but I will absolutely not be going all-in here either.

Speaking of no idea what to expect, Bryce Miller continues to spiral downward, with just a 15.3% K rate and a 6.12 ERA (5.05 SIERA) over his last 6 starts. At this point, I’m going to have to see some improvement before I consider playing him at this kind of salary. He’s out of my primary pool.

Kevin Gausman has been better than Miller, but this still doesn’t really look like a $9,000 pitcher. He looks fine-ish but much more like the kind of guy who should be $8,000 and you just hope for BABIP to help him find a quality start. With the weather favoring hitting in Wrigley Field, and Gausman facing the power-laden White Sox lineup, he’s out of my primary pool as well

Ranger Suarez has just 7 strikeouts in his last 13 innings and now faces the lowest-strikeout team in the league against lefties. Yikes on this pitching slate! On the plus side, Suarez should be back to his normal workload after getting to 81 pitches last week, but he’s going to need all the BABIP help he can get to be worth $8,700 on DK or $8,800 on FD. In his favor, while Arizona doesn’t strike out, this is a very low-power offense against lefties, and a full-strength Suarez should be able to pile up some easy innings. I think he’s fine in the sense that it would be surprising if he got shelled, but there’s not much realistic chance of upside for the salary. I don’t really think he’s worth the salary either, but I’m more willing to play him than Miller or Gausman.

I continue to have no interest in…

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