Fantasy Baseball 2026 – Top Designated Hitter (DH) Rankings, Tiers & Commentary
Last Update: January 28, 2026. Top 10 designated hitters (DH) with commentary.
Alright, let’s talk about all of the many many pure designated hitters (DH) we will see in 2026. Rostering a designated hitter in fantasy can be tricky because many leagues do not have a unique slot for a DH, and you have to lock in your precious and very flexible Utility slot very early on draft day — and many managers dislike how an everyday DH can kill season-long adjustability. Committing to a DH-only bat means less flexibility with your roster when you luck into a breakout bat from the wire and/or when your 20th-round first baseman suddenly hits like your 2nd-round first baseman. Also, my league context is important to consider before you give me shit for my rankings.
That said, Shohei Ohtani is absolutely fucking worth his ADP, and Kyle Schwarber probably is too, at least in OBP leagues. The rest, though? Let’s talk about them.
Pure Designated Hitter DH-Only Rankings for Fantasy Baseball 2026
There are so few pure designated hitters that there is no point in tiering them. If you are looking for Brent Rooker and Giancarlo Stanton, they are amazingly should NOT be DH-only for 2026, at least in ESPN leagues, as Rooker played 27 games in the outfield in 2025 and Giancarlo somehow played 20 games there himself.
1. Shohei Ohtani
The greatest baseball player to ever baseball ever ever in baseball history ever. From a fantasy perspective, he’s hit 54 home runs two seasons in a row, and leading off for the Los Angeles Dodgers has netted him 134 runs in 2024 and 146 runs last year. Despite leading off, he was able to log in 100+ RBI the last two years. Ohtani went bonkers on the basepaths in 2024 with 59 stolen bases (including 36 in 2H), and “just” 20 last year, so he may have a wide range of outcomes projected in that department. He also has a career 12.5% BB%. And he’s also a great starting pitcher! The only debate about rostering Shohei Ohtani — at least in ESPN leagues — is if you’re willing to sacrifice his offense when you elect to deploy him when he’s the starting pitcher. He’s also a fucking blast to watch so if you have the first overall pick of your fantasy baseball draft then you must draft Shohei Ohtani. He is literally the best best best ever best.
2. Kyle Schwarber
Over the last four seasons, Kyle Schwarber has hit between 38 and 56 home runs, with 100+ runs and 94+ RBI, and he has a career BB% of 14.2%, stellar for OBP leagues, plus you’ll get extra plate appearances given how the Phillies often bat him leadoff or second. Of course, you are probably at least slightly less enamored of him if you’re in a batting average league. Although Schwarber has kept his average north of .240 the last two seasons, he can be an absolute drain in that category if he hits .197 again like he did in 2023. In OBP leagues, he’s a no-brainer if he falls past like Round 3. Otherwise, drafting him will depend on your tolerance for the potential of a .197 batting average again. Either way, he’s easily the 2nd-best pure DH in baseball going into 2026.
3. Christian Yelich — (Warning! Only 19 games in the outfield last year! DH-only in ESPN!)
Heed this warning! Christian Yelich is only eligible for designated hitter going into Draft Day 2026! He played 19 games in left field last season, and no games anywhere else on the diamond, making him DH-only for now, at least in ESPN leagues that require 20 games played at a position for the eligibility to carry over.
Christian Yelich continued to be a very productive fantasy hitter in his Age 33 season, with his highest home run (29) and RBI (103) totals since his MVP candidacy years before the pandemic. Yelich’s season is all the more remarkable when we consider he had back surgery in the summer of 2024, and he missed time in September thanks to lower back soreness. There’s injury risk here, but also a surprisingly high floor going into his Age 34 season despite that risk. I’d like to rank him a bit higher, and maybe I should, but his usual DDBB% hasn’t been excellent relative to the rest of the league for three consecutive seasons.
4. Iván Herrera — (Warning! Only 14 games at catcher last year! DH-only in ESPN!)
Okay so Iván Herrera actually only caught 14 games last year, with 89 games at DH and even four games in left field, making him ineligible for the catcher position in ESPN leagues going into the 2026 season. This little detail could very well bite someone in the ass on Draft Day, so I’m ranking him here on the DH list as a warning that you should not draft him with the expectation that he’ll be one of your Opening Day catchers. Which is really too bad, because Iván won’t turn 26 until June, and he’s got a pretty tasty-looking Statcast profile that includes an 88th-percentile expected slugging percentage of .484. He had bone spurs removed from his right elbow in October, and the St. Louis Cardinals still plan to deploy him at catcher, if only part-time, so he should ideally hopefully maybe get that eligibility back soon or soonish.
5. Joc Pederson
Note the purple! In my personal spreadsheets that I’ve been using to prepare for my drafts the last few years, I have been changing the text color for strong-side platoon hitters to purple. Purple means the hitter is best deployed (and often is so by the team) vs RHP, and light purple is LHP. Purple bats, particularly dark purple, can be plenty useful in deeper leagues, but require a bit extra planning and mindfulness of opposing SP.
Joc Pederson is a purple bat and going into 2025, he was perhaps the best purple bat in the business. Pederson hit the shit out of the ball in 2024, to the tune of a .908 OPS with 23 home runs in 449 plate appearances. Most of us were expecting more of the same going into 2025 after he signed with the Texas Rangers, but his whole hitting profile just went plllffffttthhhb, and despite a 6-HR July where he OPS’d .942, it was a god-awful season for Joc Pederson, as he ended the year with an 81 OPS+. If that wasn’t enough, he actually OPS’d 1.012 in 19 plate appearances against LHP, the opposite of what he’s supposed to do. But some dead-cat bounce and progression back to the mean has to be in store, right? You probably shouldn’t draft him, but definitely keep an eye on him because if he rebounds to 2024 then he’s a heck of a lot more useful.
6. Masataka Yoshida
Masataka Yoshida appears to still be shaking the rust off his right shoulder from the labral repair surgery he had in October 2024, turning an uninspiring .266/.307/.388 slash line in 205 plate appearances in 2025. He could be a league-average bat next year (the 93 OPS+ he had was kinda sorta just a lil bit below average), but Yoshida will be 33 years old in July, and there’s very little reason to include him in your draft plans for 2026. He likely won’t even in be in the lineup against LHP, and the only reason I haven’t purpled him here is because he had a .745 OPS against them in 2023, and maybe that’ll happen again? Probably not, but maybe.
7. Marcell Ozuna
In terms of maximum exit velocity, 2025 was the first year Marcell Ozuna did not place in at least the top 7% of MLB. His xSLG and wOBA and xwOBA and xBA and average exit velocity and Barrel% all went down in notable amounts, and it’s looking like 2023 and 2024 was a two-year peak. Ozuna did jump his BB% all the way up to 15.9%, and he’ll have to keep that up if the slugging keeps going down. However, it turns out Ozuna had been playing through a tear in his right hip labrum through last year and he did NOT get surgery to fix the issue. He’s a 35 year-old free agent as of this writing, and I won’t be locking in my utility spot on draft day even after he signs somewhere, though I may bump him up to third on this list once he does.
8. Moisés Ballesteros — (DH only! Not a catcher in ESPN leagues!)
Moisés Ballesteros showed impressive plate discipline in cup-of-coffee with a 13.6% BB% that also came with a .298 batting average and .474 slugging. I don’t want to height-shame a professional athlete or anything but it’s hard to get excited about a 5’7″ designated hitter who probably won’t catch a lot of games for the Chicago Cubs, perhaps not even the 10 games need to make him eligible for ESPN during the season.
9. David Fry — (DH only for now!)
David Fry appeared in 43 games for the Cleveland Guardians last year, and all of them were in the designated hitter slot, making him ineligible for other positions on Draft Day. Fry has spent the offseason recovering from multiple facial fractures thanks to a Tarik Skubal HBP, which is a sentence I think I’ve typed more than once writing up these rankings. Fry is thankfully on track to return in 2026 and manager Stephen Vogt has plans for him to “catch and play the field a little bit too probably.” If he gets regular playing time and his catcher eligibility back, that would be pretty sweet for his fantasy value.
10. Andrew McCutchen
Is this the end of the road for Andrew McCutchen? If it is, it was a hell of a career so he can take a bow. The 11th overall pick of the 2005 draft, McCutchen has played 17 seasons in MLB, making five All-Star teams and winning the National League MVP award in 2013 after leading the league with 7.8 bWAR. He ends his career with exactly 49.0 bWAR and while he almost certainly won’t be elected to the Hall of Fame, that’s still more bWAR than Sandy Koufax and Ralph Kiner. Among his more modern contemporaries, Andrew McCutchen historically ranks in a tier of hitters that includes Bernie Williams (49.6), Ellis Burks (49.8), Fred Lynn (50.2), and Hall-of-Famer Orlando Cepeda (50.2 bWAR).
Where are the rest of your Fantasy Baseball 2026 rankings by position?
Stay tuned! I’ll be adding all the positions and updating them throughout the winter. Don’t forget to bookmark this page and stay tuned for updates throughout the offseason until Opening Day!
Cover Image Credit: public domain via Wikimedia Commons
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