2020 Positional Power Rankings: Designated Hitter
This morning, we concluded our review of the outfield with Jay Jaffe’s look at right fielders. Now we wrap up the position players with designated hitter.
It’s hardly a secret that the era of the dedicated slugger at designated hitter is over. The hulking, positionless behemoth that so many think of hasn’t been the norm at the position for years. The “new-school” model is a whirring mass of position players getting rest while still playing. A second baseman here, a left fielder there, sprinkle in a dash of good-hitting catcher on an off day, and bam, you’ve got a modern DH.
The top of our list, however, shows the inadequacy of that DH model. That’s something that many AL teams do these days, and it’s something that most every NL team will do this year without the benefit of a roster built around the position. But the teams that get the most value out of designated hitter aren’t doing it in parts. They’re tabbing single players — in many cases players who could play the field if necessary, but not always — and giving them the lion’s share of the at-bats. Yordan Alvarez, J.D. Martinez, Nelson Cruz — give me any of them over the best time-share DH situation in the league, the Cubs and their Kyle Schwarber and Friends model.
There are still many ways to build a DH. You can feed many mouths, or let the big dog eat. And there’s no real need to stand out at the position to be a great team; the Astros have Alvarez, but that’s a happy accident of his development, not a long-term plan on their part. Think of DH as a fancy dessert after a great meal; a standout one sticks in your mind, but it’s certainly not integral to the experience.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
I can think of a bunch of more “confusing” teams than the Mets the whole write up had a tinge of LolMets narrative. That said, the gm and ownership group are the drizzling shits.
Yeah it’s a bit of a crutch at this point for all these writers. It’s a little sad since I think they are trying to imitate the more playful (yet informative) style that Jeff Sullivan or others since-departed from the staff would write in. I don’t think they are succeeding.
It’s one thing for us Mets fans to be self-deprecating, but it’s another thing entirely for professional baseball writers to go out of their way to land these useless barbs.
The think that always gets me is the willingness to paint anything connected to the team with adjectives like “silly” and “confusing”, and to present it as fact without much justification. Most of the write-up is fine, but the final paragraph is mostly unnecessary nonsense. No, the team is not going to play Jeff McNeil at DH and jam all of the bad defenders in the field. No, they’re not going to put Ramos at DH- unless maybe his bat is hot and he needs a day off behind the plate, in which case, why not? Why is Adams on a team that already has Dom Smith? Well, seeing as you project him to get 8 AB, he’s probably there as insurance in case of injuries- he was signed to a minor league deal and would likely have spent much of the season at AAA in a normal year. Clearly, there is a narrative that the team is silly or confusing- and Clemens has admitted to a tendency here to tie into that narrative for the sake of entertainment- but this is not even particularly well-done, unfortunately.
The “most confusing team in baseball” yeah okay. I can’t solve the riddle as to why the Mets signed a decent left handed bat to a minor league deal. I mean, what were they thinking??
It makes perfect sense how the Angels manage to be terrible every year when they have the best baseball player ever and a huge payroll. Also, not confusing at all as to why the Royals thought not trading Whit Merrifield and making their employees watch anti-porn propaganda were good ideas. Don’t even get me started on how the Rockies construct their roster and allocate playing time. They might be the least confusing team in all of sports.
I’ll basically bet any amount Mets get better than 21st value out of the DH this season. Whatever the proper measure of value is.
I presume that the metric of choice will be WAR produced by the position. Not exactly a confusing concept. Whether that’s the “proper” measure is almost certainly comes down to your personal level of empiricism.
The worst part of this site is that every jerkoff with an internet connection thinks they’re Billy Beane or “whoever your preferred Sabre leaning Gm of choice is”. But yeah I was confused.
These are welcome to distraction-starved me. I’m curious which ball MLB will use this year, and how much that could change projections. The regular-season ball, or the postseason ball?
Shouldn’t the Braves be giving more DH time to the below-average fielder Ozuna over the decent fielder Puig?
UZR says that Ozuna has actually been better than Puig the last couple years and Statcast more or less agrees.
I also think there is a decent chance that Inciarte gets off to a bad start and they slide Acuna to CF and put Puig in there in RF to get everyone’s bat into the lineup. Puig definitely has an avenue to more time in the field if he hits.
(Interesting but useless observation – Inciarte, Ozuna and Puig were all born within about 6 weeks of each other in 1990)
That reminds me of how Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday, who spent 2 1/2 seasons as the Cardinals’ 3 & 4 hitters, were born one day apart in 1980.
The write-up doesn’t match the chart. Honestly, I think Fangraphs is off on their allocation of playing time for the Atlanta outfield/DH. I think we’ll see a lot more Acuña in center and Puig in right, and also not sure Acuña doesn’t end up playing more in left with Puig in right.
Have the Braves said anything about this, or is this just guessing now?
Not much choice for now.
Puig’s deal was contingent on testing negative.
He didn’t, so he’s still a free agent.
Atlanta is back to looking for a replacement for Markakis.
Still wondering if Cruz has managed to hide PEDs considering his prior suspension for them.
There’s pretty much no scenario where the DH combos of Cabrera/Kendrick, Carpenter/O’Neil, Davis/Brown, Vogelbach/Nola, Martinez/whoever and Puig/Riley are going to be better than what the Mets can do with Cespedes/Smith/Davis getting most DH reps. You can argue they won’t be great on D, but they should be ranked way higher here.
The scenario is: math. Smith and Davis are predicted to regress precipitously. In spite of any accompanying commentary, I don’t think there’s anything subjective or personal behind any of the rankings. I don’t know enough to argue with the math behind the predictions, I just know that there’s plenty of room for error for them to be wrong- so I don’t get too worked up about that side of things!
Cespedes is 34 years old and coming off major injuries to both feet, nobody should be confident about the level of production he’ll deliver this year. Dom Smith has never had 200 PAs in a season; he was a good hitter last year but doesn’t have much of a track record.
I agree that the projections are too pessimistic but that’s a pretty high-variance duo. It’s not at all hard to imagine Cespedes falling apart (he hasn’t played since July 2018!) and Dom Smith taking a step back, which would produce a pretty mediocre DH pairing.
That’s silly, Davis and Smith likely regress (but maybe not, who knows) and Cespedes is washed.
Cespedes could be washed, but playing a couple times a week vs. lhp, he should be fine. Davis has elite exit velos and hard hit rates and uses RF enough, he’s going to remain solid. Smith doesn’t quite have the track record, but he’s hit at every level, and won’t be exposed to LHP.
All of Reyes’ 2019 homers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhqzcl3oycQ
There are a lot of nice oppo bombs and offspeed in there.
I thought it was a mistake when the Padres traded him last year, even with how painful he was to watch defensively. It feels like a much bigger mistake now. That being said, it seems that Taylor Trammell has gotten his mojo back since joining the Padres, so this could still turn into a big win for them long term.
I mean…trading anyone looks like a mistake when you’re watching a video of nothing but the home runs that they hit.
Padres rank makes sense. It’s a volatile group, I think suggesting Mejia isn’t interesting is off the mark. Mejia to me is very volatile with big offensive upside
Yes, will definitely be interesting—at times awesome and at others infuriating. Reporting out today suggests that France is hitting his way onto the roster and possibly into the bulk of the DH reps. It would be great to see him take ownership of the role with Mejia occasionally spotting him against tough lefties. I’m not a big fan of Naylor, but understand that he is prototypical for the role if he could put the pieces together.
Baseball is trying to be too clever for its own good. The best results come from putting a genuine masher at the position and forget about the rest. The teams that rotate the DH spot might think they are trend setting but are actually hurting themselves by using this approach. The list shows, with #’s 2-3-6-7-9 all being players whose hand should never feel the weight of a glove hanging from it, that the tried and true concept of a permanent DH has been the way to go. The Red Sox are the perfect example. From 2003 through 2016 the looming countenance of David Ortiz was instrumental in 3 World Championships . 2017 showed the Sox the importance of a great DH and, in 2018, J.D. Martinez has come as close to filling Big Papi’s shoes as could be possible leading to another. Having Nelson Cruz in the lineup every day did much to help propel the Twins to the season they had in 2019. These are great hitters but even they perform better when their routine is consistent. Sitting one day then hitting then sitting never allows an athlete to get into the rhythm needed to succeed. Using the Mets as an example, there are three very capable candidates to fill the role, Cespedes, Davis and Smith. They should decide on one of them and give him the role rather than keeping everybody in a slump by rotating them. There is nothing that says a young player cannot fill the position, Big Papi was 27, but if that is the case it should be made clear that he is the DH and not somebody who is part of some rotation. If a player should not play defense, don’t ask him to. The A’s made this mistake when they kept sending Khris Davis out onto the grass of the outfield, a place he was totally unsuited to stand. In most cases it is better to leave a Nelson Cruz, Edwin Encarnacion or Jorge Soler type in the lineup everyday but a limited platoon might be the best choice in a few situations.
It’s not hard to argue that playing Khris Davis in the field is bad, but neither should Joc Pederson serve as “permanent” DH because of the “looming” presence of a Hall of Famer from another time and another team
“he’s a butcher behind the plate ” re: Contreras.
Whoa, dude.
Well, looks like FG can finally stop agonizing about the Mets potentially giving 8 AB to Matt Adams.
“Cruz might finally succumb to the age monster this season […] Also eventually, the sun will run out of fuel, expand to 100 times its current size and swallow the earth, then collapse into a white dwarf. The jury is still out on which will happen first.”
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I will take Cruz’s collapse coming first. Not because I’m down on him or anything, but because the last timeline I heard for the sun wasn’t in years, but billions of years. At that point, I fully expect the Earth’s core (and biosphere with it) to have already collapsed; let alone Nellie’s career.
Mariners high watermark in these rankings: DH where they trot out their 29-year-old journeyman catcher projected to hit .220. In 60% of his career, he has produced 0 WAR or less, yet he is our hope, our dreams, our unbridled star, our Casey at the Bat….our Casey Got Struck By a Bus.
And yet I am not without hope. I see promise in this team. This is our year.
2020……..102 less games of pain.
Ladies and gentleman, your 2020 Seattle Mariners! ! !
I don’t think Joyce will really steal at bats from Aguilar and Cooper much. The Marlins do some odd things, but typically, letting more interesting players play is what they have been doing recently.