Pitching Grips

Brad Penner-Imagn Images It’s a great time to be a baseball fan. We just finished watching an exhilarating World Baseball Classic , which ended in a thrilling 3-2 Venezuela win over the United States , and we’re less than a week away from Opening Day. Part of the fun in the days leading up the start of the season is playing catchup with all the transactions that went down over the previous months. Sure, we all know that Kyle Tucker is a Dodger and Alex Bregman is a Cub, that Cody Bellinger returned to the Yankees and Pete Alonso joined the Orioles. We also don’t need to be told that Marcus Semien , Bo Bichette , and Luis Robert Jr. now play for the Mets, or that both Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez slot in behind Garrett Crochet in the Red Sox rotation. But it can be hard to have a handle on how all these moves shape the outlook of teams across the league as we begin the season. The good news is that we at FanGraphs have been keeping tabs on everything throughout...

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images 2026 Positional Power Rankings Intro C 1B 2B SS 3B LF CF RF DH Sometimes, we fail to appreciate the vastness of the mysterious forces behind projections systems. The data speak to each other and sometimes combine in unexpected ways to form unexpected outcomes. Regarding the question of how to rank each team’s designated hitters, what you see here is based not only on projections about player performances but well-informed speculation about how each team will line up. Put it all into the kettle and, well, shock of shocks, there’s an unexpected upset at no. 1 on this list. Actually, no, it’s Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers again, by more than two wins. I don’t even know why I bothered setting up that gag, no one believed me, even for a second. 2026 Positional Power Rankings – DH 1. Dodgers Name PA AVG OBP SLG wOBA Bat BsR Fld WAR Shohei Ohtani 679 .282 .385 .599 .407 52.5 1...