Buster Olney Feb 27, 2026, 07:00 AM ET

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Senior writer ESPN Magazine/ESPN.com

Analyst/reporter ESPN television

Author of "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty"

Spring training camps are underway, which means it is time to look at the state of baseball. As part of our 2026 MLB season preview, ESPN's Buster Olney surveyed those around the industry to help him rank the top 10 players at every position as part of his annual positional ranking series.

Today, we cap the series by ranking the best of the best at designated hitter.

The objective of this exercise is to identify the best players for the 2026 season, not who might be best in five years or over their career. We rolled out a position per day over two weeks. Here's the rest of the schedule: starting pitchers ( Feb. 16 ), relief pitchers ( Feb. 17 ), catchers ( Feb. 18 ), first basemen ( Feb. 19 ), second basemen ( Feb.…