Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Tuesday 8/19

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2025-08-19 15:51:12 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 Tuesday! We have a relatively small slate for a Tuesday night, with a 10-game slate on DK and 9 games on FD. The difference between the sites is the second game of the MIL/CHC doubleheader being available on the DK slate.

At first glance, it looks way tougher to build lineups than it was last night when the spend-up pitchers were not standing out and there were quite a few good cheaper options. Tonight, we have a bigger and better top tier, while the Dodgers in Coors Field are just as expensive as they were last night.

The MLB weather report looks likely to be clear, so let’s dive right in and see how we can navigate this tricky slate.

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Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings

We have a fantastic group of pitchers tonight, with 5 high-strikeout aces priced above $9,000 on DK and a few more solid options in the $7,000-8,000 range. I’ll mention a few cheaper options, but things dry up pretty quick once we get below $7,000.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Brandon Woodruff at Cubs (DK) – 33.3% K, 5.4% BB, 2.06 ERA, 2.76 SIERA
• Joe Ryan vs. A’s – 28.2% K, 5% BB, 2.72 ERA, 3.21 SIERA
• Carlos Rodon at Rays – 27.6% K, 9.7% BB, 3.25 ERA, 3.75 SIERA
• Nick Pivetta vs. Giants – 25.9% K, 6.5% BB, 2.87 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
• Hunter Greene at Angels – 30.6% K, 5.4% BB, 2.47 ERA, 3.13 SIERA

Brandon Woodruff was pulled early in his last start, but now on full rest against the Cubs, I am assuming he is back to a full workload. It just needs to be noted that a ‘full workload’ for Woodruff this season has been around 85 pitches, and I still don’t think he has much realistic ceiling above 90. With as elite as he’s been, 80-85 pitches is more than enough, except that he is competing against a lot of other aces with similar upside. Also, despite their recent struggles, this is still a tougher matchup than what most of these other aces have. On top of that, I will just continue to say that as great as he looks, I still don’t love that his velocity is so far below his career norms. All of this is to say, of course you can play Woodruff – he’s awesome. But for me, I’m seeing too many other great pitchers that I like a little better to want to pay this premium.

Carlos Rodon has been pretty up and down with the strikeouts, but we know the upside exists. He also has one of the steadiest pitch-count leashes in the league, so he can pile up innings when things go well. He’s elite against lefties, so it’s really just a matter of breaking down this matchup against whichever righties the Rays are going to use against him. That basically leaves 2 good hitters and a plus matchup beyond that. I would say that I like Rodon, but he’s still more expensive than these next three aces on DK, so let’s wait and see.

Joe Ryan is an above-average pitcher against lefties, but he’s a top-of-the-league ace against righties with his 33.3% K rate and 5.2% BB.

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