MLB DFS Picks Today (8/12): Rasmussen Anchors 6-Game Slate

Drew Rasmussen — one of the featured players on today's slate.

The Quick Answer

Wednesday's early 6-game MLB DFS slate is short on pitchers anyone feels great about, which is exactly why Drew Rasmussen (TB) stands out at $8,700 against the Athletics: he's been dominant over his last three starts even as his price has fallen. Zebby Matthews (MIN) is the boom-or-bust alternative against a Baltimore lineup that can't hit right-handers, and the Sims are on Robbie Ray (SD) more than the show is. The full pitcher board, the Baltimore matchup case, and where the stacks landed on Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Arizona are below.

Watch The Video

The full Wednesday breakdown, built live off the Stokastic MLB Data Hub, including the pitcher price-versus-performance case on Rasmussen and a live guessing game on today's top stacks. Watch on YouTube.

Why This Slate Rewards Chasing The Price, Not The Name

A 6-game early slate usually means a short, clean pitcher list. Wednesday's isn't clean, it's flat. Run the projections and nobody separates: Zack Wheeler projects at 16, Rasmussen at 15, Robbie Ray at 14, Shane Baz-caliber arms even lower. When nothing on the board is obviously great, the price becomes the whole argument, and that's where Wednesday's slate actually has an edge: a pitcher whose salary has been sliding for weeks despite results that haven't slowed down at all.

Worked Example: How Drew Rasmussen's Price Kept Falling While His Strikeouts Climbed

That pitcher is Drew Rasmussen (TB), priced at $8,700 against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park. Here's the number I keep coming back to: his salary has fallen from the $9,600-$10,000 range over his last several starts to $8,700 today, even though his performance has only gotten better. Over that stretch he's thrown 20 innings across three starts, allowing seven hits and four walks against 27 strikeouts, all on fewer than 100 pitches a start. His strikeout rate has jumped to 27% on the year, up from a 21% league-average mark on 150 innings last season, and he's thrown 90-plus pitches in three of his last four outings, evidence the workload is real. Friday, in a similar spot, he threw 33 DraftKings points.

The matchup case is the one thing keeping his price down. Sutter Health Park is a hitter's park, and the Athletics' active roster carries a 140 ISO, second-worst in the league. But that roster is missing three of its best bats to the injured list, Brent Rooker, Nick Kurtz and Shea Langeliers, and Wednesday's weather works in Rasmussen's favor: 80 degrees at first pitch instead of the 90-94 degree afternoons that park has been seeing, no wind, and just 38% humidity. The Athletics carry a projected four-run team total against him. That combination, a fading price against a rising strikeout rate, in a park that's playing cooler than usual, is why Rasmussen was the slate's most-rostered pitcher in the show's Sims at 43%.

The Risk Play: Zebby Matthews Against Baltimore

Zebby Matthews (MIN) is priced at $7,100 on the road against Baltimore, and the show played him while being upfront that he's a boom-or-bust arm. His swing-and-miss stuff is only league-average on its own. What makes the price interesting is the matchup: Baltimore carries the highest strikeout rate against right-handers in baseball, and its offense ranks second-to-last in the league in wRC+ against righties, ahead of only Cincinnati. Wednesday's 5.5 strikeout prop on Matthews leans over for exactly that reason, and the show's numbers backed it up: Matthews graded top-four in pitcher projection, seventh-highest in price, and top-three in value on the whole board. He carried 29% exposure, the show's third-most-rostered pitcher, even with the risk attached.

The Tension Point: Robbie Ray Getting More Exposure Than Conviction

Robbie Ray (SD), now pitching for San Diego against Milwaukee, is where the Sims and the show disagreed. Ray's strikeout rate has been sliding for three straight years, from 33% in 2024 down to 25% last season and 20% this year, paired with an 11.5% walk rate that leaves him with a single-digit strikeout-minus-walk rate. He hasn't thrown a game with more than six strikeouts since June 16, and has only one such game since May 13, a three-month stretch on a pitcher who used to be a reliable strikeout source. Even so, Ray carried 35% exposure in the show's Sims, its second-highest pitcher share on the slate, well ahead of what the show's own read of him would suggest. Given the choice, our read here was to rather spend a similar price on Rasmussen.

The Rest Of The Board: No Easy Answers

Zack Wheeler (PHI) is a good pitcher, but at $10,700 on the road against St. Louis, the show didn't think he was the best arm on the board, and Sims exposure to him stayed well under the field as a result. Dustin May (MIL), now with Milwaukee, got the sign-off at $7,300 against San Diego, an offense that ranks 22nd in wRC+ and doesn't strike out much, but not an offense that scares anyone either; his two career starts against the Padres, including a nine-strikeout complete-game one-hitter, back up the read even with home-road splits that have been shaky away from Milwaukee. Kyle Leahy (STL), opposite Wheeler, also drew a pass: his expected-run average is nearly two runs higher than his actual ERA on a middling 3.78 FIP, a league-average 21% strikeout rate the show wasn't willing to chase.

The Stacks: Tampa Bay, Baltimore And Arizona

By the show's own stack rankings, Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Arizona were the three most-exposed offenses once the Sims settled, with secondary shares going to Minnesota, Houston and San Francisco. Colorado, Philadelphia, St. Louis and the Athletics all drew essentially zero exposure, the Athletics despite playing in a good hitter's park, because the roster underneath that park factor is too thin right now to chase.

Individually, Jonathan Aranda (TB) was the most-rostered bat on the board at 49%, part of the Tampa Bay stack against the Athletics that's carrying a projected 5.6-run team total, the slate's highest. Ketel Marte (ARI) sat at 25% as part of the Arizona stack against Colorado's Ryan Feltner, and Jackson Holliday (BAL) carried 23% as part of the Baltimore group facing Matthews, alongside teammates Gunnar Henderson and Tyler O'Neill. The Tampa Bay and Baltimore stacks both trace back to the same logic driving the pitcher picks: the Rays' own pitcher, Rasmussen, is priced to fail against the Athletics, and Baltimore's lineup is priced to struggle against Matthews, which is exactly why the offenses on the other side of those games graded so well.

The Bottom Line

Wednesday's board doesn't have a pitcher anyone's thrilled about on pure stuff, and that's the whole story: Drew Rasmussen's falling price against a rising strikeout rate is, in my view, the closest thing to a clear edge on the slate, with Zebby Matthews as the higher-variance alternative leaning on Baltimore's real weakness against right-handers. Robbie Ray is the name to know the Sims like more than we do. On stacks, Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Arizona lead, and the Athletics' good park still isn't enough to chase given the roster missing from that lineup. Run today's full board, MLB DFS projections, ownership and stacks in the DataHub, before you build, and check our correlation guide if you're deciding how hard to lean into the Tampa Bay or Baltimore stacks.

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For today's full pitcher board and stack ranks, head to the MLB DFS picks hub, or brush up with the Stokastic Sims tutorial, our contrarian and multi-entry strategy guides, or the MLB DFS glossary and how to win at MLB DFS primer if you're new to slate construction.

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