MLB DFS Picks Today: DraftKings Main Slate Picks for September 13
Our favorite DraftKings MLB DFS plays for Sunday's 11-game main slate, including Cam Schlittler, Freddy Peralta, the Brewers stack, top one-offs and value bats.
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Sunday’s 11-game DraftKings MLB slate starts at 1:35 p.m. ET, and our preferred build is more aggressive than simply paying for the biggest names. Cam Schlittler gives us the slate’s best strikeout ceiling, Freddy Peralta opens the salary structure at SP2, and Milwaukee is our favorite stack because Chase Burns’ late-season workload plan changes what would normally be a matchup to avoid.
Slate weather note: Fenway carries the biggest delay risk on the slate, which is one reason Payton Tolle lands in our GPP tier instead of the default build. Wrigley also has wind blowing in, making Pirates-Cubs less attractive for power bats.
Our DraftKings core for Sept. 13
Ceiling SP: Cam Schlittler, $11,400
Value SP: Freddy Peralta, $6,500
GPP SP: Payton Tolle, $9,900
Favorite stack: Milwaukee Brewers
Favorite one-off: Kyle Schwarber, $5,600
Favorite value: Joey Ortiz, $3,100
Pitchers
Cam Schlittler, Yankees, $11,400
Schlittler is the pitcher we are most willing to pay for. He enters the matchup with a 2.01 ERA, 220 strikeouts and a 31.4% strikeout rate. His 25.4% strikeout-minus-walk rate is also among the best marks in baseball.
The Mets have enough talent that this is not a free square, but Schlittler does not need a weak opponent to create separation. His fastball can miss bats at the top of the zone, his recent workload gives him a real path to seven innings, and the strikeout ceiling is noticeably higher than the cheap tier.
Freddy Peralta, Rays, $6,500
Peralta is the salary piece that makes the rest of the slate work. His full-season 4.82 ERA is not pretty, but the recent form has been dramatically better. He has posted three straight quality starts while allowing only two earned runs across 18 innings.
At $6,500, we do not need ace-level production. If Peralta gives us six competitive innings with five or six strikeouts, the salary savings can be worth more than the raw-point gap between him and the second tier of expensive pitchers. That is why our default construction pairs him with Schlittler instead of paying twice at pitcher.
Payton Tolle, Red Sox, $9,900
Tolle has legitimate tournament-winning strikeout upside. His 22.1% strikeout-minus-walk rate would rank near the top of the league with a full qualifying workload, and 12 of his 24 starts have reached at least seven strikeouts.
The talent is not the concern. Fenway carries meaningful weather and delay risk, so we prefer Tolle in tournaments rather than treating him like a core SP1. If the game plays cleanly, he has the swing-and-miss profile to challenge Schlittler at lower salary and potentially lower ownership.
Favorite stack: Milwaukee Brewers
Milwaukee is our favorite stack because the matchup is much better than the name of the starting pitcher suggests. Chase Burns owns a 2.73 ERA with 176 strikeouts, and under normal circumstances we would not be looking to attack him.
The key is Cincinnati’s late-season workload plan. Burns’ remaining starts are being shortened, and his most recent outing lasted only three innings and 44 pitches. That pushes a large portion of Milwaukee’s plate appearances toward the piggyback and bullpen. Brandon Williamson has a 5.97 ERA, 6.15 FIP and 1.67 WHIP, with a walk rate above 15%.
Milwaukee has also scored 33 runs in the first two games of this series. We are not chasing those box scores blindly, but the combination of lineup depth, affordable salaries and an abbreviated Burns start makes this the offense we want to build around.
- Jackson Chourio, $5,800: the premium piece. He has a 1.025 OPS over the last 28 days with 13 extra-base hits.
- Brice Turang, $5,300: expensive for second base, but his combination of contact, runs and speed fits a full-stack build.
- William Contreras, $4,400: catcher eligibility makes him one of the easiest ways to gain positional value inside the stack.
- Christian Yelich, $4,000: an appealing midrange salary for a hitter who can contribute power, runs and stolen bases.
- Sal Frelick, $2,900: cheap access to the stack and one of the easiest salary savers to pair with Schlittler.
- Joey Ortiz, $3,100: our favorite value in the lineup. Since the end of June, he has hit .323 with an .887 OPS.
- Garrett Mitchell, $3,600: high-variance GPP piece with a 53% hard-hit rate and home runs in each of the first two games of the series.
- Cooper Pratt, $3,200: another inexpensive way to extend the stack without sacrificing pitching.
Our preferred four-man core is Contreras + Yelich + Ortiz + Mitchell. Add Chourio when the rest of the lineup can support the salary. If you need to stay balanced, Frelick or Pratt keeps the stack intact without forcing a downgrade from Schlittler.
Best one-off hitters
Kyle Schwarber, Phillies, $5,600
Schwarber is our favorite standalone power bat. Thirty of his 44 home runs have come against right-handed pitching, and he gets Grant Holmes in Atlanta. On a slate where our favorite stack is not built around pure home-run power, Schwarber gives the lineup exactly that.
Max Muncy, Dodgers, $4,600
Muncy is the first Dodgers hitter we want outside of a full stack. Forty of his 52 extra-base hits and 22 of his home runs have come against right-handers, and he owns a .997 OPS over the last 28 days. Eury Perez is talented, but he has allowed at least five earned runs in three straight starts.
Drake Baldwin, Braves, $4,300
Baldwin gives us premium offensive ability at catcher without paying all the way up. He still has 13 extra-base hits since the start of August and faces Andrew Painter, who carries a 5.71 ERA into the matchup. If we are not using Contreras in a Brewers stack, Baldwin is our favorite catcher pivot.
Kyle Tucker, Dodgers, $4,000
Tucker is not a true punt, but $4,000 is a friendly salary for his ceiling in this lineup. He has power, speed and run-production paths, and the price makes him easier to use as a one-off than Freeman or the very top outfield salaries.
Best value hitters
- Joey Ortiz, Brewers, $3,100: our favorite value because he fits the top stack, carries multi-position eligibility and has been much better than the salary suggests for more than two months.
- Sal Frelick, Brewers, $2,900: cheap stack correlation with contact and speed upside.
- Garrett Mitchell, Brewers, $3,600: more volatile than Ortiz or Frelick, but the hard-contact ceiling is much higher.
- Alex Freeland, Dodgers, $2,300: near-minimum salary exposure to one of the best offenses on the slate.
- Josue De Paula, Dodgers, $3,100: still looking for his first major-league hit, but the minor-league extra-base-hit profile gives him real upside at this price.
- Victor Mesa Jr., Rays, $3,700: a stronger tournament value than cash play. Sixteen of his 20 extra-base hits have come against right-handers, including 12 of his 13 home runs, and Houston starts right-hander Hayden Wesneski.
Other GPP stacks
Dodgers: Freddie Freeman ($4,900), Mookie Betts ($4,800), Max Muncy ($4,600), Kyle Tucker ($4,000), Teoscar Hernandez ($4,300), Will Smith ($4,200), Tommy Edman ($4,500), Josue De Paula ($3,100) and Alex Freeland ($2,300). Eury Perez still has swing-and-miss talent, so this is not a matchup we want to treat like a bad bullpen game from pitch one. The reason to attack is his recent form and the depth of Los Angeles’ lineup. Muncy + Tucker + one of Betts/Freeman is our favorite three-man starting point.
Brewers power variation: if you want to use Milwaukee but avoid the cheaper construction that may become popular, build around Chourio ($5,800), Turang ($5,300), Contreras ($4,400) and Mitchell ($3,600). It is a much more expensive version of the same stack, but it gives you a different combination of ceiling outcomes.
How we are building
Our default path is Schlittler + Peralta at pitcher, then a four- or five-man Brewers stack. Schwarber is the first expensive one-off we try to add. Ortiz, Frelick, Mitchell and the cheap Dodgers pieces give us enough salary flexibility that we do not need to sacrifice the pitching ceiling just to finish the lineup.
For large-field GPPs, Tolle is the pitching pivot if the Fenway weather cooperates, while the Dodgers are the offense we want when moving away from Milwaukee. We are also comfortable leaving salary unused if it creates a cleaner four- or five-man stack instead of forcing an unrelated final hitter simply because the lineup reaches exactly $50,000.