2018 Positional Power Rankings: Designated Hitter

by
March 23, 2018
2018 Positional Power Rankings Series

The current post is the last of this week’s installments in the positional power rankings. (Pitchers will appear next week.) If you’re the sort of person who’s unfamiliar with what a “positional power ranking” is, you have every right to read the introductory post by Dr. Jeff Sullivan, a real medical doctor who is certified to comment on all manner of physical maladies and whom you should contact with real, pressing, possibly urgent health concerns.

If, on the other hand, you’re acquainted with these particular rankings of power, consider turning your attention immediately to the chart below, which depicts WAR projections for all the American League’s designated-hitter depth charts.

Historically, the offensive burden on designated hitters is high. It probably should be high: the position carries little in the way of other obligations. If a designated hitter isn’t hitting, he doesn’t have much other value to his club. Maybe he’s a proficient interlocutor, one capable of identifying the common ground between himself and those around him. That’s an important skill. How it translates to run-scoring, though, isn’t immediately obvious.

By the numbers, the Yankees probably have the best designated hitters. The White Sox probably have the worst, according to the same numbers. All the other clubs appear between those two. All other commentary on the topic appears below.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

35 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
SubtleSlight
7 years ago

Jesus Christ, that White Sox paragraph was savage.
Leave poor Davidson alone. XD

30
sadtromboneMember since 2020
7 years ago
Reply to  SubtleSlight

I don’t think he’s ever going to make it as a DH…he’s going to have to add something in the field. Unfortunately, he’s currently blocked at third by the immortal Yolmer Sanchez, who was the third most valuable player last year for the White Sox (would have been 4th had they not traded Frazier, and likely 5th had Delmonico had a full year, and will likely finish no better than 6th because of Welington Castilo…ah, forget it).

1
SnorlaxUseRest
7 years ago
Reply to  SubtleSlight

That grad student comment was savage.
Leave poor ME alone. :/

2