Garion Thorne dives into today’s nine-game MLB Opening Day slate to find three value options for your DraftKings lineups.

We got just a taste of MLB Opening Day on Wednesday night — and it was a weird game that featured too much Bert Kreischer and too many glowing Adobe ads. Today feels like more of the real deal.

Nine glorious afternoon baseball games and a DFS slate on DraftKings with a $100,000 prize. What more can you ask for?

Let’s break it all down and find some value picks.

Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: MLB $400K Opening Day Special [$100K to 1st]

SP Cade Cavalli, Washington Nationals at Chicago Cubs, $6,300

I’m a big fan of Cavalli’s heading into 2026, and I think he gets his campaign started on the right foot against the Cubs — though this really has nothing to do with his opponent at all. In fact, I’m far more interested in the game’s setting. It’s Wrigley Field in March. There’s no way anyone was expecting the hitting conditions to be good on Thursday, and it appears that’s exactly how this contest will play out. 10-15 mph winds blowing in off the lake? Temperature hovering around 50 degrees? Have fun with that, batters.

I don’t want to sell Cavalli’s talents short, either. The former first-round pick was only able to make 10 starts and pitch 48.2 innings for the Nationals in 2025, yet the right-hander certainly made an impression to those paying attention beyond the surface stats. How about combining a 95th percentile chase rate (33.9%) with a 93rd percentile ground ball rate (55.1%)? How about averaging 97.0 mph with your fastball as a starting pitcher? Being the Nationals’ “ace” is a low bar to clear at the moment, but don’t make the mistake of overlooking Cavalli due to his employer. I think he has the capacity to be very, very solid.

OF Sal Frelick, Milwaukee Brewers vs. Chicago White Sox, $3,500

To be clear, Frelick’s batting profile is closer to Luis Arraez than it is Aaron Judge, but the former 15th-overall pick did slash .282/.349/.433 with a 119 wRC+ in his 420 plate appearances against RHPs last season. If Frelick can consistently start elevating the ball with a little more pop, he’s an outside threat for a 20/20 campaign in 2026. You don’t need to me to be the one to tell you that makes for a valuable fantasy asset.

Specific to Thursday, Frelick’s left-handed bat is assisted by the presence of Shane Smith ($6,500), who will start on Opening Day for the White Sox after making the All-Star Game as his team’s lone representative in his rookie season. Don’t get me wrong: Smith isn’t a bad pitcher. However, he did struggled with LHBs in 2025. Lefties hit 13 of the 17 home runs that Smith conceded, and the 25-year-old registered an underwhelming 4.66 FIP within the split. Not ideal!

OF Austin Martin, Minnesota Twins at Baltimore Orioles, $3,400

It’s not like I’m going out of my way to pick on Trevor Rogers ($8,100), but the fact of the matter is that this is an Opening Day slate. There’s six or seven of the best pitchers on the planet toeing the rubber this afternoon, so sometimes you’re left targeting the guy who managed a 1.81 ERA across 109.1 innings last season — though a 3.75 SIERA suggests the lefty was nowhere near that good.

In any case, Rogers is left-handed, and that bodes well for Martin, who appears to be in a platoon role for the Twins in 2026. Martin has lost a lot of the prospect allure that once made him the fifth-overall pick in the MLB Draft, yet he did look quite great in a limited sample against LHPs in 2025. In his 57 plate appearances within the split, Martin hit .346 with a 149 wRC+ and his lone home run of the year. That success was also backed up by a .365 expected wOBA versus southpaws. The 27-year-old may have finally found a role for himself in the big leagues.