MLB DFS Picks Today (7/28): Gavin Williams Value

Gavin Williams — one of the featured players on today's slate.

The Quick Answer

Tonight's MLB DFS picks come from a weather-threatened, 10-game Tuesday slate: Gavin Williams (CLE) at $9,300 is the biggest mispricing on the board, but his price won't reflect his actual matchup (a Reds offense with the league's worst wRC+ against right-handers) until the Reds-Guardians doubleheader script flips at 1:40 ET. Taj Bradley (MIN) at $8,600 and Michael King (SD) at $8,400 are the value arms already pricing correctly, and the Northeast storm system threatening the Chris Sale start could wipe out an entire game. The full pitcher board, the doubleheader mechanics, and where the cheap Cleveland bats fit once the flip happens are below.

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The full breakdown of tonight's 10-game slate, built live in the Stokastic MLB Data Hub with the Sims, props and exposures pulled straight from the tool. Watch on YouTube.

The Doubleheader Trap: Why Gavin Williams Isn't Showing Up Yet

Start with the mechanical issue that's distorting the entire board right now. Cincinnati and Cleveland are playing a doubleheader today, with the first game starting at 1:10 ET (Chase Burns for the Reds, Slade Cecconi for Cleveland) and the second game following at 7:10 ET. The Sims are built to reflect the game that's live, so until that first game actually starts at 1:40 ET, the projections are still running Chase Burns and a zeroed-out Cleveland stack, even though Burns isn't pitching in the game most of us will actually roster from.

The pitcher who matters for that night-game slate is Gavin Williams, and he isn't showing up as a real exposure yet simply because the tool hasn't flipped over. That's a real gap between what the board shows right now and what the board will show once the early game locks. Anyone building lineups before 1:40 ET needs to manually account for Williams instead of trusting the numbers as displayed.

Layer a second wrinkle on top: heavy thunderstorms are moving across the Northeast today, and the Chris Sale (ATL) start against Christian Scott and the Mets at Citi Field carries a real risk of getting washed out entirely. The Data Hub has that game at roughly a 15% postponement risk right now. Treat it as playing until told otherwise, but don't be shocked if it doesn't.

Gavin Williams (CLE) At $9,300 Is The Slate's Biggest Outlier

Once the projections flip, Williams becomes the pitcher this slate is built around, and the case is about as clean as this stat hierarchy gets. Cincinnati is running an 85 wRC+ against right-handed pitching this season (dead last in baseball) to go with a 25% strikeout rate against righties, the highest mark in the league across more than 3,000 plate appearances. That's not a small-sample flag; it's a full-season identity. The Reds do have some pop, but the strikeout rate and the league-worst quality of contact make this about as favorable a righty-vs-righty matchup as exists on a given night.

The park and the weather add to it rather than fight it: Great American Ball Park is playing at 85 degrees tonight with the wind blowing out at 9 miles per hour for a 7:10 ET start, conditions that usually favor hitters, but Williams has the swing-and-miss stuff to overcome it. He's sitting on a 31% strikeout rate this season with an 11.5% barrel rate allowed, a 14% swinging-strike rate and a 31.5% called-plus-swinging-strike rate. He does give up a fair number of home runs (1.42 per nine), but he hasn't been prone to the multi-run blow-up innings that turn a good pitcher into a bust. The profile is volume strikeouts with contained damage, not a shutdown ace. At $9,300 against the league's worst qualifying offense against right-handers, with a 7.5 strikeout prop at -130 to the over on FanDuel, this is the pitcher to build around once the board catches up.

The row worth sitting with is Williams': he's the only arm on this board pairing a top-of-slate strikeout prop with the single worst offensive matchup in the sport, and right now the field building before 1:40 ET is getting none of him.

Taj Bradley (MIN) And Michael King (SD): The Value That's Already Priced Right

Not every good matchup needs a projection flip to show up. Taj Bradley at $8,600 at home against Kansas City is the second-highest projected pitcher on the slate once Cincinnati sorts itself out, and that price isn't a premium for the profile: he's gone seven-plus innings in four of his last six starts and five-plus innings in every start since June 14. The Royals are a weak offense against right-handers, sub-100 wRC+, middle of the league in strikeout rate, without much power to punish a mistake. His strikeout prop sits at 6.5 with heavy juice to the under (roughly -125), which tracks with a pitcher who misses bats without racking up double-digit strikeout totals.

Michael King at $8,400 against Colorado is the other value arm worth rostering. His strikeout rate has dipped to 21% this season against a 26% career mark, a real question mark worth watching, but he isn't giving up much power (0.83 home runs per nine), and the matchup does a lot of the work for him. The Rockies were historically bad last year (a 74 wRC+ against right-handers) and remain a well below-average offense in 2026, especially away from Coors Field: a 24% strikeout rate on the road, an 18th-ranked walk rate, and a 21st-ranked wRC+ away from home. San Diego is the road park tonight, so King gets the Rockies without the Coors boost.

Landen Roupp (SF) at $7,600 rounds out the clean value tier, projected for 16 fantasy points against a Milwaukee lineup that walks a lot but doesn't strike out much, a matchup that would look tougher outside of a pitcher's park like Oracle Park. His props back the profile: a 2.5 earned-run line juiced to the under across books, and a 5.5 strikeout prop at roughly -122 to the over.

Reid Detmers (LAA) at $8,100 at home against Houston is one more value arm worth knowing about. He struck out nine against the Astros earlier this season in this same home park, and he's fully stretched out, throwing 93 and 103 pitches over his last two starts. His props back a real strikeout matchup: a 17.5 hits-allowed line juiced to the over, a 2.5 earned-run line juiced heavily to the under (around -150), and a strikeout prop sitting around 6.5.

Worked Example: What Building Before The 1:40 ET Flip Actually Costs You

Build a lineup at noon and the tool still shows Chase Burns starting the early game, with Cleveland's second-game stack projections held at zero. The fix is simple but easy to miss: manually swap in Gavin Williams at $9,300 in place of whatever the tool is showing at that price point, and treat Jose Ramirez plus the cheap Cleveland bats (Angel Martinez, Brayan Rocchio, Gabriel Arias, Chase DeLauter and Rhys Hoskins, all in the $3,500 to $4,200 range) as an available stack, even though none of it will show correct ownership numbers until after 1:40 ET. A lineup that pairs Williams with Taj Bradley or Michael King at the top of the pitching pool, then fills out with those Cleveland value bats, is the same construction the Sims will be pointing you toward once the board catches up. Build it manually now, and you're not scrambling to re-optimize in the 20 minutes before lock.

A Deep Pitching Slate: 9 Viable Arms On Only 10 Games

This is a rare slate where pitching depth, not scarcity, is the construction problem. Counting only pitchers a real tournament-winning lineup could roster tonight: Chris Sale (ATL), weather permitting; Gerrit Cole (NYY), on the road against a Chicago White Sox offense projected for just a 3.8-run team total; Logan Henderson (MIL), coming off a strong start but facing a real pitch-count ceiling; Gavin Williams (CLE) once the board flips; Peter Lambert (HOU), a bit rich at $9,000 but going up against an Angels lineup running an unusually high strikeout rate; plus the value tier above in Taj Bradley, Michael King, Landen Roupp and Reid Detmers. That's nine legitimate options on a 10-game Tuesday slate. Not all of them are equally good, but all are truly in play, which is exactly the kind of slate where the pricing gaps above (Williams especially) matter more than raw talent gaps.

The pitchers worth fading entirely: Colin Rea (CHC), Michael Lorenzen (COL, projected south of 10 fantasy points), Anthony Kay (CHW, home against the Yankees but without the volume to matter), Luis Castillo (SEA, on the road at Dodger Stadium after a rough last outing) and Seth Lugo (KC), whose props (a 4.5 strikeout line at -154 to the under, a 3.5 earned-run line) simply don't leave enough margin for error.

Boston's The Chalk, The Dodgers Are The Pricing Problem

Boston is drawing the highest implied team total on the entire slate at 5.6 runs against Oakland and Gage Jump, and the field is going to be heavily on that stack tonight. The alternative expensive stack, the Dodgers, is a pricing problem more than a matchup problem: at a 5.4-run implied total, the offense is legitimately good, but seven of the projected starters, including Shohei Ohtani at $6,700, Freddie Freeman at $5,500, Max Muncy at $5,400, Andy Pages at $5,100, Mookie Betts at $4,900, Tommy Edman at $4,700 and Kyle Tucker at $4,500, are all priced at $4,500 or higher. Even eight or nine Dodgers runs on a 10-game slate may not be enough return on that much invested salary, especially with Ohtani alone at $6,700 anchoring the build.

Once the Reds-Guardians projections flip, expect Cleveland to become the cheap-stack play of the night. Outside of Jose Ramirez (arguably the best hitting option on the slate and still priced under $5,300 despite a rough return from the IL), the rest of the lineup is cheap: Angel Martinez around $4,000, Brayan Rocchio around $4,100, Gabriel Arias around $4,200, Chase DeLauter around $3,800 and Rhys Hoskins around $3,500. Against a bullpen-game Reds pitching staff, that's a full stack buildable for close to the price of one Dodger.

One individual bat worth a specific note: Cal Raleigh has had a rough stretch that isn't reflected in his raw projection. He's drawing enough exposure that a small negative regression adjustment (roughly a 20% haircut) brings his exposure down to a more reasonable level without removing him from consideration entirely.

The Bottom Line

Tonight's 10-game board comes down to two things: a doubleheader that's temporarily hiding the slate's best pitcher, and a deep enough pitching pool that construction, not scarcity, is the real skill test. Gavin Williams at $9,300 is the mispricing to build around once the Reds-Guardians projections flip at 1:40 ET, with Taj Bradley and Michael King as the value arms already pricing correctly. Boston is the chalk stack, the Dodgers are priced like it, and Cleveland becomes the value stack of the night once the board catches up. Run the same numbers yourself in the Stokastic MLB Data Hub before you lock tonight's lineups, and check our MLB DFS glossary if any of the terms above are new to you.

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For today's full pitcher board, stack ranks and projected ownership, head to the MLB DFS picks hub, or dig into the Stokastic Sims tutorial and our correlation and contrarian strategy guides if you're building your first lineup tonight.