Shohei Ohtani is extensively hailed as the best two-way participant in baseball historical past — an excellent slugger and a dominating pitcher.
However an elbow damage confined him to the primary of his twin expertise in 2024. He served solely as a chosen hitter for the world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, flashing an unprecedented mixture of energy (54 house runs) and pace (59 stolen bases).
Ohtani’s five-year stats had been almost nearly as good, incomes him the excellence of being baseball’s greatest DH between 2020 and 2024.
At this time’s rankings are confined to gamers who made at the very least 1,400 plate appearances through the five-year span and spent greater than half of their video games as designated hitters. (The statistics that I analyzed, nonetheless, encompassed their full information in any respect positions.)
My unit of measure is general base worth (OBV), which stacks a specific batter’s output in opposition to the efficiency degree of a median main leaguer.
Ohtani, as an illustration, reached 1,930 bases for the Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels over the 2020-2024 interval, encompassing all of his hits, walks, hit batters, stolen bases, and sacrifices. The everyday main leaguer would have attained 1,238 bases beneath the identical circumstances. Ohtani exceeded the norm by 692 bases, giving him an OBV of plus-692.
The runners-up within the DH rankings had been Yordan Alvarez at plus-460 and Marcell Ozuna at plus-224. Alvarez performed solely for the Houston Astros through the five-year span, Ozuna just for the Atlanta Braves.
Scroll all the way down to see the half-decade’s 10 greatest designated hitters within the OBV rankings. Every is adopted by parenthetical stats for 2020-2024 — video games, house runs, runs batted in, and batting common — capped by his general base worth.
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1. Shohei Ohtani (G 650, HR 185, RBI 444, BA .280) — OBV +692
2. Yordan Alvarez (G 542, HR 137, RBI 388, BA .296) — OBV +460
3. Marcell Ozuna (G 538, HR 127, RBI 342, BA .273) — OBV +224
4. Brent Rooker (G 363, HR 79, RBI 204, BA .258) — OBV +145
5. J.D. Martinez (G 574, HR 100, RBI 360, BA .263) — OBV +129
6. Jorge Soler (G 543, HR 105, RBI 267, BA .233) — OBV +103
7. Andrew McCutchen (G 567, HR 86, RBI 276, BA .238) — OBV +89
8. Giancarlo Stanton (G 487, HR 121, RBI 318, BA .231) — OBV +84
9. Nelson Cruz (G 366, HR 63, RBI 206, BA .258) — OBV +51
10. Eloy Jimenez (G 412, HR 64, RBI 219, BA .269) — OBV +8
