MLB DFS Picks: DraftKings 13-Game Main Slate for September 18

Friday gives us a deep 13-game DraftKings main slate starting at 7:05 p.m. ET. The size of the slate creates plenty of ways to get different, but the clearest starting points are a surging Cade Cavalli at pitcher, Cleveland in a premium matchup with Mason Barnett, and Seattle getting the Coors Field environment.

Pitching

Cade Cavalli, Nationals — $9,300

Cavalli is the pitcher we want to build around most often. He enters this matchup with seven straight games above 20 DraftKings points, and his recent strikeout profile gives him legitimate slate-leading upside without forcing us all the way to the top of the salary range. St. Louis has been one of the weaker offenses in baseball by both power and overall run creation.

Grayson Rodriguez, Angels — $6,000

Rodriguez is the salary-release option. The matchup with Minnesota is not nearly as clean as Cavalli’s spot, but his second-half indicators have improved and he has reached double-digit DraftKings points in eight of his last nine outings. At $6,000, that is enough to open expensive stacks without requiring a perfect pitching performance.

Top Stacks

1. Cleveland Guardians vs. Mason Barnett

Cleveland is our favorite full stack. Barnett has struggled to miss bats and has allowed too much hard contact and power, while the Guardians have been swinging it well against right-handed pitching. Travis Bazzana is the priority piece, with Steven Kwan, Brayan Rocchio and Nathaniel Lowe giving us multiple ways to build around him.

2. Seattle Mariners at Colorado

Coors Field carries the highest total on the board, so Seattle belongs near the top of the stack pool even on a slate this large. The obvious drawback is that the environment will attract attention. In tournaments, we prefer using Seattle as a concentrated stack rather than automatically forcing every expensive name from the game into the same lineup.

3. Los Angeles Dodgers vs. César Perdomo

The Dodgers are our favorite late-game tournament stack. Los Angeles is a massive home favorite and brings enough power throughout the order to win the slate without needing Coors. On a 13-game slate, the late start also gives this stack a different construction path from the Cleveland-heavy builds.

GPP Stack

Washington Nationals at St. Louis

Washington is the lower-cost stack we like when paying for Cavalli or pairing an expensive offense with a second team. Kyle Leahy has been vulnerable to left-handed hitters, and the Nationals have inexpensive pieces that can make an otherwise difficult lineup construction work.

One-Off Hitters

• Travis Bazzana, Guardians — $4,300: Bazzana has been scorching hot, with five homers over an 11-game stretch and a matchup that also makes him the centerpiece of our favorite stack.
• Kody Clemens, Twins — $4,400: A strong left-handed power matchup against Grayson Rodriguez. Clemens has been crushing right-handed pitching recently, making him viable even in lineups where we use Rodriguez for salary relief.
• Brett Bateman, Blue Jays — $4,000: Less raw power than the other one-offs, but his speed and leadoff role give him multiple scoring paths against Kumar Rocker.

Value Plays

• Abimelec Ortiz, Nationals — $2,600: Our favorite cheap Washington piece. The left-handed matchup with Kyle Leahy is the attraction, and Ortiz has enough power to matter beyond simply making the salary cap work.
• Tommy Pham, White Sox — $2,000: Pure tournament salary relief. The strikeout risk is real, but the minimum salary and recent hard contact create a useful boom-or-bust path if he lands in the heart of Chicago’s order.

CTS Core

• SP: Cade Cavalli — $9,300
• Stack: Cleveland Guardians
• One-off: Travis Bazzana — $4,300
• Value: Abimelec Ortiz — $2,600

Lineup Construction

The cleanest build starts with Cavalli and Cleveland, then decides whether to use Rodriguez to unlock a premium second stack. In large-field GPPs, Cleveland-Seattle will be an intuitive combination, so Cleveland-Dodgers or Cleveland-Washington constructions give us a different path without abandoning the best individual spots. On a 13-game slate, we want correlation first and random low-owned one-offs second.