FanDuel MLB DFS Cheat Sheet For August 18: Projections, Ownership, And Stacks

The field is still too low on the top pitcher. Kevin Gausman leads projection and leverage on the August 18 sheet and trails only Shohei Ohtani in exposure, so the day comes down to the bats around him.

The Quick Answer

I'm playing Kevin Gausman. He projects highest at 32.17, sits in 56.0% of top-150 sim-ROI lineups, and carries the widest leverage on the board, +28.1%, at 27.9% ownership. Then I stack the Padres, because Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado are the next two leverage plays and SD vs NYM is the top 4-stack. The Dodgers chalk gets sorted below.

Today's August 18 FanDuel Board

Tatis Jr. is third in exposure at 34.7% without cracking the top five in ownership; that gap is his +22.7% leverage.

The One Pitcher Slot

FanDuel rosters a single pitcher, so that slot absorbs the biggest salary and all of the arm-side variance, with no second starter to hedge the way a DraftKings build can. Today the top projected pitcher is also the highest-exposure pitcher: 56.0% on 27.9% ownership means the Sims want Gausman, drawing the White Sox at Wrigley, more than the field does. Kyle Harrison (30.27) and Bryce Miller (27.42), opposing starters in Milwaukee, are the pivots, but neither cracks the top five in exposure or leverage.

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Worked Example: The Padres Four-Stack

1. Anchor Tatis Jr. and Machado. Tatis Jr. is in 34.7% of top-150 sim-ROI lineups at +22.7% leverage; Machado is 30.7% and +21.8%. Two of the top three leverage plays, one lineup.
2. Fill to four, not five. FanDuel caps you at four hitters from one team, so SD vs NYM at 14.0% has two seats left.
3. Spend the freed slots on one-offs. No second pitcher and only four Padres leaves room: Bobby Witt Jr. (34.0% exposure, +18.6% leverage) is the first one-off, out of the second-most-built stack, KC vs ATH (10.7%); Daulton Varsho (4.10) and Michael Busch (4.02) fill the last two seats off the value panel.
4. Sort the Dodgers chalk by panel, not by name. Shohei Ohtani is 41.8% owned and I'm still playing him: 62.0% exposure, top value at 4.42, +20.2% leverage. Max Muncy (20.0%) and Freddie Freeman (19.5%) are the fades, outside the top five in value, exposure and leverage. Kyle Tucker, third on the ownership panel at 22.1% and second in value at 4.14, is the one Dodger I treat separately: a lower-exposure play, not a fade.

Every panel comes out of the Stokastic Sims, which replay the slate tens of thousands of times with correlation intact inside a stack, model the Ownership Projections as a distribution, and derive exposure from sim ROI across the top-150 lineup pool. The full board lives in the MLB DFS projections, ownership and stacks in the DataHub. The sheet is free daily; code CHEAT takes 15% off the first week or month of the paid MLB packages.

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So the pitcher is the clear priority and the bats decide it: two Padres off the leverage panel, one Royal, Ohtani, Tucker where it fits, and Muncy and Freeman left to the field. Confirm lineups before lock. 21+; play responsibly.