Best Designated Hitters

This list ranks designated hitters by OpScore, not by in-game Overall. Overall is a single number that never changes with the difficulty you play on; OpScore re-weights what actually wins games and recomputes it per difficulty, so the best card on All-Star is often not the best on Legend.

For designated hitters the weighting leans on pure offence, no defensive discount — the cleanest read on which bat actually scores runs. Where that disagrees with the market — and it frequently does, because the market pays for the headline Overall — the gap is the value.

Cards eligible at designated hitter through a secondary position are included, because when you are filling this slot the best available option is often a card listed elsewhere. Every row links to that card’s full page — live price, OpScore breakdown, quirks, and price history.

Other positions: Catchers · First Basemen · Second Basemen · Third Basemen · Shortstops · Left Fielders · Center Fielders · Right Fielders · Starting Pitchers · Relief Pitchers · Closing Pitchers