Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks Today for Tuesday 5/5

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2026-05-05 15:45:22 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 give you his musings on the May 5, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Wednesday and Happy Cinco de Mayo! It is only a happy day until you start looking at the slate, as there is some real nonsense all over the place. This is one of those bizarre slates where I don’t really like the pitching, and yet somehow, there is also very little offense to like. A lot of this is due to bad hitting weather in most games, most notably in Coors Field and in St. Louis. At the time I’m writing this, I am assuming the Coors Field game gets postponed, and that is a possibility in St. Louis as well. I’m hoping to be surprised and find some things to like on this slate, but I’m not all that hopeful.

Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

We have two definite aces, with one in a tough matchup, and then we have a few other borderline aces depending on your definition of the word ace.

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Shohei Ohtani at Astros – 31.3% K, 5.9% BB, 1.99 ERA, 2.85 SIERA
• Jacob deGrom at Yankees – 27.4% K, 5.6% BB, 2.82 ERA, 3.24 SIERA
• Gavin Williams at Royals – 25.8% K, 11.7% BB, 2.99 ERA, 4.16 SIERA
• George Kirby vs. Braves – 24.4% K, 5.7% BB, 3.89 ERA, 3.52 SIERA
• Logan Webb vs. Padres – 25.1% K, 5.8% BB, 3.41 ERA, 3.23 SIERA
• Bryce Elder at Mariners – 19.6% K, 7.5% BB, 4.56 ERA, 4.25 SIERA
• Freddy Peralta at Rockies – 27.7% K, 9.2% BB, 2.85 ERA, 3.70 SIERA

After 26 strikeouts in his last 3 starts and getting up over 100 pitches last week, Shohei Ohtani is starting to look like he’s in mid-season form. If you enjoy some numbers from a small sample size, and I know you do, Ohtani has a 43.8% K rate against righties to open this season. He’s also added a 53% ground-ball rate in the early going to his already elite skill set. Even if none of that is quite real, this is one of the best pitchers in the league, and there is a world in which we haven’t even seen the best of him yet. The salary is not easy to get to, but he’s my clear SP1.

Jacob deGrom faced this Yankees team last week, and he was great in real life, as is always the expectation, but with just 5 strikeouts, it was nothing spectacular for a high-priced DFS pitcher. He’s one of the only pitchers in the league who is good enough to still be in play at this salary against the Yankees, but I can’t put him in the same tier as Ohtani. You could argue that deGrom is the better real-life pitcher, but I prefer Ohtani’s strikeouts for DFS, and I prefer his matchup. deGrom will still be in the MME pool on DK, but that’s about it.

Gavin Williams has a 31% K rate through 7 starts this season, with 9+ strikeouts in 3 starts and 7+ strikeouts in 5 starts. He also has the same 11% walks as last season, and I expect consistency to continue to be an issue. But there’s no questioning the upside here, and while the Royals are still not a great strikeout matchup, they have been a little easier opponent than they were last season in that regard. This guy is going to be a wild card every time he takes the mound, and in general, he’s the kind of guy I want to fade when he’s chalky and play when he’s sneaky. My initial thought is that he will be…

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