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Casey WIlson's top DraftKings and FanDuel MLB DFS picks for today, Thursday, 3/26/26. His favorite daily fantasy baseball lineup sleepers and value picks for DFS on DraftKings and FanDuel.
Opening Day is finally here after a long wait, and it feels like Christmas for us in the baseball community. For those who don't know me, I am Casey Wilson and have been leading our MLB DFS team here at RotoBaller for the last three seasons. I am very grateful to be back representing an awesome company and providing content for you all.
We have a nine-game slate on the docket to get us started in 2026. Early-season DFS has been a goldmine for us over the last few years, as we had three takedowns in the first two weeks of the 2025 season. It is important to understand strategy and how to approach a slate early in the season. Do not worry, we have you covered here at RotoBaller in this article.
This article will provide my daily fantasy baseball lineup picks for DraftKings and FanDuel on 3/26/2026, with the slate starting at 1:15 PM EST. The lineup picks will showcase elite players, mid-priced options, and value plays. You can also read more DFS advice and lineup picks for other sports here. Monitoring injury news and today's MLB starting lineups is always essential.
DraftKings, FanDuel - MLB DFS Top Pitcher
Matthew Boyd, SP - CHC ($7.3K DK/$8.2K FD)
For those of you who have followed my content in the past, this is not a surprising player to be featured as my Top Pitcher on the slate. To win a contest, you have to think outside the box. Matthew Boyd checks all the boxes for me when targeting pitching early in the season.
First and foremost, I will tend not to target expensive pitching early because of the upside with pitch counts, especially when we have a value arm that sticks out like a sore thumb. I will feature an expensive pitcher later in the article, but for now, let's dig into this matchup with Matthew Boyd and the Nationals.
Boyd will be toeing the rubber at Wrigley Field, where he was elite in 2025. He posted a 2.37 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, and a 23.0% K at home last season. His ERA was almost a full point lower than his full-season numbers. In 2025, Boyd posted a 4.22 xFIP, 21.4% K, 10.7% SwStr, 1.09 WHIP, with a 0.95 HR/9. These numbers are good, not great, so why do I love Boyd so much?
The first box I look for early in the season is price, and Boyd is CHEAP. At 7.3K on DraftKings, you can pair him with any other pitcher you like and still have salary to play a more expensive stack. On FanDuel, I will target him as my SP1 and pay up for hitting.
The second box is matchup. His expected K% in my model is almost 2 points higher when factoring in the matchup. The Nationals in 2025 had a 25.3% K and a .639 OPS against southpaws. They were even worse in the second half of the season with a 28.8% K and a .577 OPS.
The other major factor here is that the top four bats in their lineup are all left-handed hitters, including CJ Abrams, James Wood, Daylen Lile, and Luis Garcia. Boyd dominated lefties to a .225 wOBA, .075 ISO, and a 23.2% K in 2025. There is not a single right-handed bat in this lineup that had over a .600 OPS against left-handed pitching last season.
The third very important factor here is the pitch count. In his final tune-up on March 20th, Boyd threw 87 pitches. On FanDuel, there is plenty of room to get us a quality start, which is not the case for many arms throwing today. I will be targeting Boyd with confidence and hopefully a low roster percentage on Opening Day.
DraftKings, FanDuel - MLB DFS Top Stack
Boston Red Sox (Model Stack Grade- 182) vs Andrew Abbott
Is 2026 the year Andrew Abbott finally comes back to earth, and the regression monster finally hits him? Many of my brilliant colleagues at RotoBaller who handle season-long content think so. I am willing to bank on that in a great matchup for the Red Sox in game one of the season.
The Red Sox will get to play their first series at Great American Ballpark in one of the warmer projected games on the slate. This is a top-five park in MLB for scoring and even more so for home runs. Power is key in DFS, and having a stack that can get us two to three home runs is enough to win us a slate.
Above is a snippet from my model for the Red Sox's matchup against Andrew Abbott. Every matchup can be found here for those who want to dig in further and research on their own.
In 2025, Abbott posted a 4.31 xFIP, 1.15 WHIP, 1.03 HR/9, 47.8% FB, and a 27.0% Hard Hit. He posted a 2.87 ERA, but the underlying metrics had his SIERA at 4.20. That is the highest difference on the slate. This spring, Abbott struggled with an 11.72 ERA, 2.04 WHIP, while allowing 6 HR and 23 ER in 17.2 IP.
The Red Sox lineup in 2026 will be elite against LHP. They have one hitter projected to start below a .700 OPS against southpaws, and that is Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The three lefties in this lineup, Roman Anthony, Jarren Duran, and Wilyer Abreu, all had over a .763 OPS against lefties in 2025. With the addition of Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin, there are even more right-handed hitters without pinch-hit risk to target.
The Red Sox are the clear target for me, and I will be full-stacking them against Andrew Abbott on Thursday.
Favorite Stack: Anthony, Contreras, Story, Abreu, Durbin
