MLB DFS Picks Today: Top Plays for the June 18 DraftKings Slate

Some nights the slate hands you obvious pitching and you just stack the right offense. June 18 is not that night. This is a short, ugly board where no starting pitcher looks clean and the headline game might not even play, and the right MLB DFS strategy is to lean on the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims to find the leverage instead of forcing a hero. Here are our actual mlb dfs picks today, the salaries, and the single-lineup build we ran on the show.

In Summary

• It's a five-game DraftKings slate that could shrink to four. The San Francisco Giants at Atlanta Braves game is a real rain risk, so watch the weather before lock.
• Top pitcher: Ryan Weathers (highest projected pitcher in the DataHub) against the Chicago White Sox, on the strength of a 6.5-strikeout prop and a 27% season strikeout rate.
• SP2: Sean Manaea against a Philadelphia Phillies lineup that struggles versus lefties, with Matthew Liberatore and Gage Jump as the lower-owned pivots.
• Stack of the night: the Los Angeles Angels versus A's rookie Gage Jump, the highest stack score in our Top Stacks tool tonight.
• Bankroll first. No pitcher tonight is a clean spot, so this is a GPP night to trust the Sims and play within your roll.

Watch the Video

Dave Loughran handles the pitchers and Josh Ingamman handles the stacks in the full Perfect Lineup show below, including the live single-lineup Sim build we walk through here. Watch on YouTube.

The Slate: Five Games, Maybe Four

The first thing to settle tonight is how many games you're actually building into. It's a five-game slate on paper, but the weather in Atlanta looks brutal, and the San Francisco Giants at Atlanta Braves game is a genuine postponement risk. We're not meteorologists, but the hourly and the radar both look bad, so keep a close watch on it right up to lock.

That matters for more than one reason. Every game on the board carries a 9.5-run total or higher except for that San Francisco–Atlanta game, so the run environment everywhere else is strong. It also shapes the pitching pool: if Atlanta gets postponed and Landen Roupp doesn't go, the top of the pitcher board reshuffles around the arms that are locked to play.

The honest read on this slate is that the pitching stinks. That's not automatically a bad thing for tournaments. We all pick from the same pitchers, which is exactly why we lean on the tools here: the tool surfaces the leverage spots and simulates every lineup out, rather than chasing a pitcher who only looks good by comparison. Our users had a great day on yesterday's early slate even though the pitching wasn't pretty on paper either, so an ugly board is workable.

Pitcher Picks: Ryan Weathers and Sean Manaea

SP1: Ryan Weathers vs. the Chicago White Sox

Ryan Weathers is the default at the top tonight, and it comes straight from the numbers: he's the highest projected pitcher in the Stokastic DataHub. He hasn't been good lately, and the White Sox are actually decent against lefties (they put up three on a left-hander yesterday), so this isn't a clean spot. The reason he still grades out is strikeouts. Weathers carries a 6.5-strikeout prop and a 27% strikeout rate on the season, and strikeouts are what mitigate an otherwise shaky line.

The mechanism is the whole point: a pitcher who misses bats can survive contact. McKenzie Gore recently gave up four runs and still posted 25 DraftKings points because he struck out 10. A pitcher who can't generate whiffs has to throw seven innings of one-run ball to be worth it. Weathers can get the whiffs even on a night the wind isn't helping him, so he's the projection leader for a reason.

If José Soriano is confirmed to start for the Angels and comes back clean from the chest and leg issues, he's a pitcher to consider as a leverage pivot, but only if there's a real gap in ownership. On a night when nobody actually looks great, getting away from the chalk pitcher with one of your arms can be the lucrative play precisely because the field is forced into the same uninspiring options.

SP2: Sean Manaea, With Liberatore and Jump as Pivots

Good luck feeling great about any SP2 tonight. We settled on Sean Manaea anyway, and the case is matchup-driven. He threw 84 pitches his last time out, his highest mark of the season, so there's room for length if he's cruising. He carries a 24% strikeout rate and a 5.5-strikeout prop against a Philadelphia Phillies team that strikes out plenty versus lefties and ranks as a bottom-10 hitting team against them, with a 91 wRC+ on their active roster versus left-handers. It's going to be hot with the wind blowing out at Citizens Bank Park, but Manaea has historically been good at suppressing same-handed power, so unless Bryce Harper or Kyle Schwarber gets a hold of one, the lefty matchup helps him there. When we ran the Sims before the show, we were landing on about 25% Manaea, which is a comfortable amount of a pitcher in a spot like this.

Two pivots are worth naming. Matthew Liberatore currently has the highest value score in the DataHub and projects to roughly 6% ownership, which on a bad pitching slate is exactly the leverage you want; Manaea sits second in value right behind him. And Gage Jump was actually the highest-exposed pitcher we were getting to in the Sims, even though he's the A's rookie our hitting stack is attacking. That tension is normal on a short slate, and it's subject to change through the day as ownership and lineups firm up.

Stack of the Night: The Los Angeles Angels

We're getting some Angels in our outfield tonight, and they're the headline of our MLB DFS stacks for the slate. The Los Angeles Angels are the number-two team in our Top Stacks tool, number one in top value, and just third in ownership, and that combination is what gives them the number-one overall stack score. A high projection that the field hasn't piled onto yet is exactly the leverage profile that wins tournaments.

The matchup is A's rookie Gage Jump, a real top-100 prospect with electric stuff, a good fastball and curveball, and strong minor-league strikeout numbers, but command that hasn't shown up yet at the major-league level. That's a wide range of outcomes. The Angels rank 16th in wRC+ (97) against lefties, 11th in ISO, and seventh in strikeout rate, so there's genuine pop here alongside the real chance Jump misses bats and it goes the other way. With his command questions and the run environment, the upside outcome is live.

The salaries make the build cheap, which is the opportunity. At the top you've got Zach Neto at $5,300 and Mike Trout at $5,700 in the outfield, with a projected lineup that's an absolute sea of right-handed bats. Below those two anchors the Angels offer a cluster of cheap middle-infield and corner bats: a shortstop at $3,300, another at $2,700, and a multi-position infielder at $2,500. Once you take Neto and Trout, basically everyone else you'd roster comes in at $3,600 or cheaper, so a five-man Angels stack leaves you real salary to spend elsewhere.

New to Stokastic? The Stokastic MLB DFS Sims simulate the full DraftKings contest tens of thousands of times and build your lineups for you, with the Top Stacks, projection, and ownership data that flagged the Angels as tonight's number-one stack score baked in. Try the Sims free, and use code PERFECT25 for 25% off any Stokastic MLB subscription (weekly, monthly, or all-access): Start with the Sims.

How to Build It: A Worked Single-Lineup Sim Example

Here's how the build comes together in the single-lineup simulator. We locked in both pitchers first, Ryan Weathers and Sean Manaea, then anchored the Angels stack with Zach Neto ($5,300), Mike Trout ($5,700), Jo Adell, and catcher Logan O'Hoppe, plus one more bat from the cheap value tier to make it a five-man Angels stack. That left $4,700 per spot to fill the last three positions, a first baseman, a third baseman, and an outfielder. On a slate this small, that's a lot of salary, which should buy us strong bats.

Rather than guess at the last three, we clicked "complete this lineup" and let the Sims fill the first baseman, third baseman, and outfielder with the three most optimal plays from our projections. The completed build came back with a 53% sim ROI, a 33% cash rate, and a 2% top-10 chance, a construction we're happy with on a night like this.

From there the flexibility is the point. If you want a different shape, you can unlock the bats, swap one Angel for another, or move to a 4-3-1 stack-and-secondary structure, then recalculate with a touch of randomness to generate a fresh set of optimal lineups. That's how you go from one build to a tournament-ready set without hand-jamming each lineup. The Sims build the lineups; you steer the exposures.

A note on contest type: the simulated ROI, the top-10 chance, and the leverage we're chasing off ownership are all GPP (tournament) tools. For cash games (double-ups and 50/50s, where you only need to beat about half the field), you want a higher-floor build off projections, not the tournament-optimized pool.

A Word on Variance and Bankroll

Every pitcher tonight has something working against him, and that's worth saying out loud. DFS, and MLB DFS especially, is high-variance: the best lineup before lock can still finish near the bottom once the games play. That's the nature of it, which is why we judge by process over any one result and size entries to the bankroll. On a thin slate like this one, trust the Sims to find the edges and play within your roll rather than press.

FAQ

What are the best MLB DFS pitcher picks today?

For DraftKings MLB picks at pitcher, Ryan Weathers is our top arm tonight as the highest projected pitcher in the DataHub, against the Chicago White Sox on the strength of a 6.5-strikeout prop and a 27% season strikeout rate. Sean Manaea is our SP2 versus a Phillies lineup that struggles against lefties, with Matthew Liberatore and Gage Jump as lower-owned pivots.

What is the top MLB DFS stack today?

The Los Angeles Angels against A's rookie Gage Jump. They're number two in our Top Stacks tool, number one in top value, and only third in ownership, which gives them the highest overall stack score on the slate.

How many games are on the June 18 DraftKings slate?

It's a five-game main slate that could shrink to four if the San Francisco Giants at Atlanta Braves game is postponed for weather. Every other game on the board carries a 9.5-run total or higher.

Should I use the same lineup for cash and tournaments?

No. The simulated ROI, top-10 chance, and ownership-based leverage are tournament tools. Cash games reward a higher-floor build off projections, so use opposite construction for each format.

Build Tonight's Lineups With the Sims

The takeaway on a night like this is simple: the edges are small, so let the tools find them. The Stokastic MLB DFS Sims simulate the full contest tens of thousands of times, fold in the Top Stacks, projection, and ownership data that flagged the Angels tonight, and build your DraftKings lineups for you so you can steer exposures instead of hand-jamming each entry. You can try the Sims free to see it work, then use code PERFECT25 for 25% off any Stokastic MLB subscription, weekly, monthly, or all-access: Start your build.