Monday’s MLB slate is small but juicy for DFS purposes — just three games on the board, headlined by a Blue Jays-Orioles clash with a 7.5-run total and a Nationals-Tigers matchup that looks like a run-scoring buffet at Comerica Park. With Washington chasing a soft Detroit pitching plan and Toronto’s offense scuffling on the road, there’s real separation between the plays worth rostering and the ones worth fading in both cash games and GPPs.

With only three games to build around, correlation matters more than usual. We’re targeting a mix of a top-of-the-market ace, a couple of Nationals bats feasting on a shaky Tigers pitching plan, and a pair of value bats who won’t eat into your salary cap. Here’s where the value is hiding on today’s DraftKings and FanDuel MLB slate.

Shane Baz, SP — Baltimore Orioles ($8,000 DK)

Baz draws Toronto at Camden Yards, and the underlying profile still points to a strong outing despite a shaky last start. He was pulled early in his most recent turn after getting hit on the elbow, cutting a promising game short at just 68 pitches and 1.6 FPTS — but all indications are there’s no lingering issue, and the four starts before that produced double-digit fantasy points in four of five outings, including two above 20 FPTS.

Through 173 innings this season, Baz carries a 3.61 FIP, a number that undersells how good his stuff has been. The matchup does him plenty of favors, too: Toronto is dead-last in the league in isolated power, 29th in wOBA and 24th in wRC+ as a team. FanGraphs also has Baz sitting on a 3.92 ERA and 21.2% strikeout rate in home starts this season, and Camden Yards has trimmed his walk rate to a manageable 7.7% at home.

At $8,000, he’s the priciest arm on this three-game board, but he’s also the swing gap between the Orioles winning at -110 on the moneyline and a total that’s been set at 7.5 — which tells you oddsmakers expect scoring, just not from Baz’s side of the ledger. In a thin pitcher pool, paying up for the stud arm remains the correct anchor strategy for both cash and GPP builds.

CJ Abrams, SS — Washington Nationals ($5,500 DK)

Abrams is enjoying a monster platform season — 30 home runs, 89 runs, 97 RBI and 32 stolen bases in 627 plate appearances — and tonight’s matchup at Detroit sets up beautifully. The Tigers are turning to a bullpen game, with rookie righty River Ryan opening for a couple of innings before Keider Montero handles bulk innings. Montero has allowed 12 home runs to left-handed hitters this season with a bloated 4.67 FIP and just a 7.1% K-BB rate against them.

Abrams has gone over 1.5 combined hits + runs + RBIs in five of his last seven games and actually homered in his most recent outing. Against right-handed pitching, he’s posted a .336 OBP, .231 ISO and a strong .355 wOBA with 122 wRC+ across 631 plate appearances this year. With Washington’s lineup lacking depth beyond a handful of core bats, Abrams remains the straw that stirs the drink — a stolen-base threat who also has real thump, which is a rare combination at shortstop on a value-friendly salary.

James Wood, OF — Washington Nationals ($6,000 DK)

If you’re rostering Abrams, Wood is the natural pairing at the top of Washington’s order against this same shaky Detroit pitching plan. Wood has been one of the best all-around hitters in baseball this year — 30 home runs, 103 runs, 76 RBI and 21 stolen bases across 594 plate appearances — and his exit-velocity data backs up the counting stats, with a 95.2 mph average exit velocity, 19.4% barrel rate and 76.8 mph bat speed.

The matchup context matters here too: against right-handed pitching specifically, Wood has 21 home runs with a stellar .407 wOBA and 157 wRC+. Both Ryan and Montero throw from the right side, and neither profiles as a shutdown weapon against a bat with this kind of raw power and plate discipline (a .390 OBP on the year). Wood’s floor is high enough for cash games, and his ceiling makes him one of the better GPP anchors on the entire three-game board.

Gleyber Torres, 2B/DH — Detroit Tigers ($3,700 DK)

Torres is the rare value bat on the opposing side of that same Nationals-Tigers game, and he brings a real weapon to the table against left-handed pitching. Since 2024, Torres has 16 home runs against southpaws with a .384 OBP, .191 ISO, .366 wOBA and a 138 wRC+ in 463 plate appearances — exactly the profile you want to see when he’s staring down Nationals lefty starter DJ Herz tonight.

At $3,700, Torres is priced like a bottom-of-the-order complementary piece, but his track record against lefties makes him a legitimate stacking option if you want exposure to the Detroit side of this high-scoring matchup (the game total sits at 8.5 runs). He’s an easy fit to pair with a Tigers teammate like Spencer Torkelson, who has 17 homers against lefties with a .344 OBP and 122 wRC+ over the same multi-year sample, giving you correlated power at a fraction of the cost of the Washington studs.

Daylen Lile, OF — Washington Nationals ($4,300 DK)

Rounding out the Nationals stack, Lile gives you a cheaper way to buy into that same River Ryan/Keider Montero matchup without committing premium salary. Lile has 22 home runs, 81 runs, 88 RBI and 15 stolen bases across 580 plate appearances this season, hitting .250 with a .740 OPS — a solid everyday floor for a $4,300 price tag.

Lile bats near the top of Washington’s order, which means added run-scoring opportunities in a game where the Nationals enter as +130 underdogs on the moneyline against a Detroit bullpen plan that’s been vulnerable all year. He’s not the highest-ceiling bat in this article, but he’s a legitimate value piece that lets you get to studs like Wood and Abrams without blowing your remaining salary on replacement-level bats elsewhere in the lineup.

Building Your Lineup

With just three games on the board, the smart approach on both DraftKings and FanDuel is to lean into stacking rather than spreading exposure thin. The Nationals-at-Tigers game is the clear target — an 8.5-run total against a patchwork Detroit pitching plan makes both sides of that lineup card viable, whether you’re building a Washington-heavy stack around Wood and Abrams or pivoting to cheaper Detroit bats like Torres to balance your cap space.

In cash games, prioritize the studs with the safest floors — Baz on the mound and Wood or Abrams in the middle of your lineup — and fill around them with value bats like Lile and Torres rather than reaching for unproven punt plays. In GPPs, don’t be afraid to differentiate by rostering both sides of the Nationals-Tigers game if ownership clusters heavily on the Washington stack; a Torres-Torkelson pairing could easily be underowned relative to its true upside. If you’re building your DraftKings lineup or setting your FanDuel picks tonight, check the latest live MLB odds before locking anything in, since line movement late in the day can be a signal on which offense is expected to actually produce. Whichever combination you land on, today’s slate rewards discipline over chalk — a smaller game count means less room for error, so build around real matchup edges rather than name recognition.