Thursday’s MLB slate is a compact six-game card, but it’s loaded with intrigue for DFS players hunting both cash-game floor and GPP ceiling. A blockbuster trade-deadline arm makes his latest start for a first-place club, a red-hot slugger riding a nine-game hit streak faces a shaky road pitching staff, and a couple of Houston’s middle-of-the-order bats get a juicy shot at a White Sox rotation that’s been getting hit hard all summer. With Skubal-level arms and rock-bottom-priced power bats both in play, there’s a path to building a balanced lineup on both DraftKings and FanDuel tonight.

Our approach today leans on pitching first, then fills around with hitters who have specific, verifiable reasons to expect a big game — recent hot streaks, favorable career splits, or matchups against pitchers who’ve struggled in September. Here are our top five MLB DFS picks for tonight’s slate.

Tarik Skubal, SP — Los Angeles Dodgers ($10,500 DK)

Skubal is the top arm on the board for a reason. Since being traded to the Dodgers in early August, the left-hander has settled in nicely, posting a 3.00 ERA, 1.03 WHIP and a 37:7 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his first five starts with his new club. He’s been even better lately, throwing up 23.1 and 32.2 fantasy points in his last two outings, and over his final six starts dating back to July 31 he’s gone 4-1 with a 1.25 ERA and 52 strikeouts against just six walks across 36 innings.

Tonight he draws the Cardinals at home, and while St. Louis has actually played better on the road than at home this year, Skubal’s overall body of work — a 2.84 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and 10.9 K/9 across 126.2 innings this season — puts him in the 90th-plus percentile in nearly every advanced pitching category league-wide. At $10,500, he’s the priciest arm on the slate, but on a six-game night with thin park factors elsewhere, paying up for the pitcher most likely to miss bats and go deep into the game is a defensible cash-game anchor.

The swing skill here matters, too — Skubal’s strikeout rate ranks in the 95th percentile among all starters, and his walk rate sits in the 99th percentile, meaning the bust risk from free passes piling up is about as low as it gets on this slate.

Hunter Brown, SP — Houston Astros ($9,000-9,400 DK)

Brown gets a home date with a Chicago White Sox club that’s been one of the softer offensive matchups for pitchers all season, and he’s trending in the right direction after ending a five-start stretch of allowing a home run with a dominant performance against the Mets. In that outing, Brown fanned 10 batters over 6.2 innings while allowing just one run on five hits and a walk — his first double-digit strikeout game of the year, generating 14 whiffs on 102 pitches.

Over his last seven starts, Brown owns a sharp 2.63 ERA with 43 strikeouts across 41 innings, a clear step forward from his season-long numbers of a 3.33 ERA and 86 strikeouts over 81 innings. Advanced metrics back up the recent form — his hard-hit rate allowed is down and his ground-ball rate is up compared to last year, which should keep the extra-base damage in check even in a bandbox-friendly building. Facing a White Sox lineup that ranks toward the bottom of the league in several offensive categories, Brown projects as one of the safer floor plays among pitchers priced south of Skubal.

Rafael Devers, 1B — San Francisco Giants ($5,500-6,000 range)

Devers is in the middle of one of the best stretches of his season. He’s reached base in nine consecutive games, hitting .400 with 12 RBI, 11 runs scored and five home runs over that span, including a three-run shot in Tuesday’s slugfest against the Pirates and another solo homer the very next night. On the year, he’s slashing .252/.332/.494 with 31 home runs and 82 RBI — good for ninth in MLB in homers — giving him one of the higher power ceilings at his salary tier on either site.

Pittsburgh’s pitching staff has struggled to slow him down specifically, and the Giants and Pirates wrap up their series today. Devers carried +440 odds to homer in his last matchup, reflecting how strongly the market views his current form. With 30-plus home runs and an .826 OPS on the season, and a swing that’s produced extra-base damage in each of his last three games, Devers is a premium bat who still offers relative salary value given how hot he’s running right now.

Kyle Stowers, OF/1B — Miami Marlins ($4,200 DK)

Stowers is a classic mid-slate value target. At just $4,200 on DraftKings, he’s produced a home run in back-to-back games against the Royals, including a solo shot in Tuesday’s 6-3 win where he went 1-for-4. On the season, Stowers is hitting .245 with 17 home runs and 57 RBI, and he’s shown he can carry a lineup in shorter bursts — he’s picked up a hit or driven in a run in four of his last five games.

Tonight’s matchup against Kansas City continues to favor him. The Royals have struggled to contain left-handed power all year, and Stowers, who bats left-handed, gets another look at a Royals pitching staff that’s given up plenty of hard contact to lefty bats in this series already. At a salary that leaves plenty of room to pay up elsewhere for arms like Skubal or Brown, Stowers is a low-cost source of real power upside — exactly the kind of DFS value play that wins cash games and anchors GPP builds without eating into the rest of your salary cap.

Yordan Alvarez, DH — Houston Astros ($6,500 DK / $4,500 FD range)

Alvarez is chasing an AL Triple Crown down the stretch, and he’s simply been the best hitter on the Astros’ side of tonight’s slate. He’s hitting .316 with 37 home runs, 94 RBI and a 1.036 OPS on the season — all elite marks that rank at or near the top of MLB leaderboards. His plate discipline is just as impressive, with a walk rate north of 15% paired with a strikeout rate under 18%, meaning he’s rarely a total zero even on nights without a home run.

He gets the same home matchup as Hunter Brown tonight, facing a White Sox pitching staff via Luis Castillo, who carries a bloated 5.31 ERA into the outing. Alvarez has been quiet on the power front over his last handful of games, going deep just once in a 25-game stretch, but his underlying .919 OPS during that span shows the quality of contact hasn’t gone anywhere — the home runs are due to start piling up again, and this is as good a matchup as any to expect it. Pairing him with Brown gives DFS players a correlated way to attack the same lopsided game from both sides.

Building Your Lineup

Tonight’s slate rewards a pitching-heavy build given how thin some of these lineups are and how top-heavy the ace tier is with Skubal and Brown both in play. If you’re playing cash games, anchoring with Skubal’s floor and pairing him with a stack of value bats like Stowers gives you a strong foundation without overcommitting your entire budget to one game environment. For GPPs, consider rostering both Astros bats — Alvarez and a complementary Houston piece — alongside Brown to fully attack the Astros-White Sox game from the pitching and hitting side simultaneously, since that matchup profiles as one of the more lopsided ones on the board.

Devers is a strong GPP piece given how hot he’s running, but expect him to carry moderate ownership given the recent home run binge — pivoting to Stowers as a cheaper power source at a similar risk profile can help differentiate your DraftKings lineup or FanDuel roster from the field. Before locking anything in, double-check the latest confirmed lineups and any late scratches, and always shop your bankroll across a mix of cash games and GPP picks rather than going all-in on one contest type. If you’re still building out your season-long DFS toolkit, it’s worth comparing platforms beyond the big two — the Underdog Fantasy pick’em format is a solid complement to traditional salary-cap DFS on nights like this one, when player-specific conviction outweighs full-roster construction.