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

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

Created Aug 19, 2026

Last Updated 2026-08-19 16:35:51 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 19, 2026 MLB DFS slate.

Happy Wednesday! We’ve got a 9-game main slate on both sites tonight that starts a little earlier than usual at 6:35 PM ET. We again have the Dodgers way out ahead of the field, but this is another slate where there is no shortage of other high-upside offenses to like along with them. We also finally get some more good pitching into the pool after a shaky few days in that department. At first glance, this looks like a very fun slate with several different ways you can go.

Wednesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on DraftKings and FanDuel

We have a pretty good top tier tonight, with some pretty big salary separation on the DK side. These top 7 pitchers go from $11,000 all the way down to $7,500 on DK, while they are a bit more bunched up between $8,300 – $10,500 on FD:

TOP TIER PITCHING

• Chase Burns vs. Cardinals – 28.7% K, 8.7% BB, 2.47 ERA, 3.50 SIERA
• Logan Gilbert at Brewers – 26.6% K, 5.8% BB, 3.28 ERA, 3.41 SIERA
• Parker Messick vs. Giants – 25.1% K, 7.1% BB, 3.36 ERA, 3.46 SIERA
• Drew Rasmussen vs. Blue Jays – 26.3% K, 4.5% BB, 2.78 ERA, 3.23 SIERA
• Cade Cavalli at Rangers – 26.1% K, 7.1% BB, 3.36 ERA, 3.43 SIERA
• Dustin May vs. Mariners – 23.1% K, 7.9% BB, 4.13 ERA, 3.95 SIERA
• Will Warren at Orioles – 22.6% K, 7.9% BB, 4.42 ERA, 3.99 SIERA

Chase Burns is the best strikeout pitcher on this slate, and Logan Gilbert is the ace with the longest track record, but when adding in the matchup, Parker Messick jumps quickly to the top of the board tonight. The Giants’ active roster ranks dead last in the league in ISO and wOBA against lefties, with every hitter in their lineup either being a high-strikeout bat or a low-power bat. Messick allows almost no power and is up at a 26% K rate to righties, which he should see at least 6 of tonight. He would be my SP1 if everyone were the same salary, making this a pretty easy choice with his discount on both sites.

Messick will be popular, so if you want to spend up to one of the top two to get an ace at lower ownership, that is certainly viable here as well. The problem here is that…

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