Introduction
If you haven’t read any of the previous articles in my D-backs Prospect All-Star series, I’ve been breaking down the best 2026 seasons at each position in the D-backs Farm system since the MiLB regular season ended. Just to recap, in part one, we looked at our starting pitcher, catcher, and the infield corner positions. TLDR: That gave us Carlos Virahonda as the starting catcher, David Hagaman as starting pitcher; At the hot corner, we have Danny Serretti as our third baseman, and across the diamond
we have at first base, Manuel Pena.
In part two, we looked at the middle infield along with the outfield. TLDR: Our all star infield is anchored by the D-backs’ top two overall prospects, second baseman Demetrio Crisantes and shortstop Kayson Cunningham. The outfield was much more an unknown factor, but we’ll say it’s Jeremy Surriel, Trent Youngblood, and Yohendi Hernandez
Last week, we looked at my reliever of the year Joe Ariola. That just leaves us with one position unaccounted for, and if you hadn’t figured it out from the title, it’s designated hitter.
It is truly sad that we have to have this conversation but..
DH Prospects aren’t really a thing
I should really address the massive elephant in the room: a “Designated Hitter prospect” is a borderline oxymoronic term. If you’re an actual ranked prospect and you are a primary DH, this can only be for a few reasons, some of which are borderline or outright hypothetical.
- You are so bad defensively that everyone else decided that you don’t need that baseball glove anymore, but your bat is that good.
- There are better players at your competent positions, and nowhere else to play you where you aren’t a liability, but your bat is legitimately good enough that the team will fit your bat into the lineup.
- You are an injury risk and/or coming off a serious injury.
- You are a successful amateur two-way player, but the team doesn’t think you’re good enough at pitching to continue doing both.
- All of the above
- You are the proverbial unicorn, an actual two way player, who would completely dominate the league’s batters/pitchers if you’d just wasting your talent trying to do both.*****
“No the team isn’t going to have you playing the field, in-between your starts, making diving catches in left. I don’t care that you’d be a better right fielder“^
*****No one in Arizona or any other MLB team’s farm systems is this, or even looks like they might be this right now, thanks to the current two-way player rule
^Ohtani actually suggested this to all the professional teams he has played for (citation Needed).
Signing an amateur prospect who’s exclusively a DH is basically unheard of, at least in my experience. Even when converting a two-way DH/Pitcher to DH, that player is going to be given every chance to learn how to play the field. The Diamondbacks have generally used the DH position in the minors as a way to give the regulars a rest, and have mostly avoided having DH-exclusive hitters.
Finding our D-backs MiLB All-Star DH
There are a few ways we can go about finding a DH for our MILB All-Star team. We could just go with highest wRC+/OPS in the D-backs farm. That would be Weber Neels, a 19th round pick in this year draft who hit .365/.411/.750 with a 179 wRC+. That guy smashed eleven doubles and three homeruns in the span of twelve games in his professional debut with Low A Visalia. Pack it up and go because we find our guy.
What’s that? He only played 12 games total and played the field in every game so you think he doesn’t count? Well then, I’m sure if I go with Tim Tawa and his .320/.409/.733 triple slash with a 161 wRC+ for Triple A Reno, you’re going to complain that twenty games isn’t much better and then I’ll point out he wouldn’t count anyway since he’s not a prospect anymore and I excluded any player with MLB service time in this discussion.
Okay, fine, we’ll go back to taking this seriously. The Diamondbacks have just three qualified hitters at DH in their entire MILB farm system. Two of those hitters, 17 year old catcher/DH Jhosep Villarroel and 1B/OF/DH Manny Almonte played in the Dominican Summer League, which has a very short season and a bunch of other issues that compound the difficulty of evaluating prospects. That leaves with only one qualified hitter in the in upper levels of the minor leagues in the Dbacks organization that had enough plate appearences to qualify at DH, and that’s Catcher Ivan Luciano.
Jhosep Villarroel had a extremely impressive debut season, putting up triple slash of .303/.500/.485 with a 148 wRC+, it was in only 47 games AND in the DSL. Manny Almonte’s batting line of .255/.372/.465 with a 92 wRC+ was squarely below average, so he’s out as an option at DH, on top of the same reasons as Villarroel.
That leaves us with just the one option to plug in at DH, the aforementioned Ivan Luciano. Luciano is a legit catching prospect, but he had to share time with a plethora of other (arguably better) catching prospects like Carlos Virahonda. If there weren’t better options on Visalia or Hillsboro’s rosters, I dont think he’d have spent as much time DHing as he did in 2026.
In 85 games with the Low A level Visalia Rawhide, the 19 year old Luciano hit .264/.375/.441 with a 109 wRC+. Luciano spent the remaining 12 games of his 2026 season playing for the High-A level Hillsboro Hops, where he hit .279/.380/.465 with a 122 wRC+. In 97 games combined across the two levels in 2026, Luciano hit .266/.376/.444 with a 111 wRC+.
Luciano isn’t a bad pick to DH, just like he wasn’t a bad pick for an honorable mention/runner up for all-star to Virahonda at catcher. Villarroel’s season was as worthy of a mention here just like it was when going over the catching position, but Luciano gets the nod, from playing twice as many games at a higher level on the minor league ladder.
Not Every Team Treats MILB DHs like the D-backs
While finishing up the research for this article, I found a rather surprising piece of information: There’s actually 96 total qualified DHs in MiLB. Out of the thirty MLB franchises there were two teams who didn’t have a qualified hitter at DH, along with four teams that have just one. Seventeen other teams match the D-backs with at least three hitters qualified at DH. The Cincinnati Reds lead the way with seven.
Out of the 96 qualified designated hitters in Minor League Baseball, 67 of them have a 100 wRC+ or better. Jhosep Villarroel’s 148 wRC+ looks even better when compared to his peers; his 2026 season was the fourth best out of all the qualified DHs, and the three hitters who had better seasons were old for the levels they were assigned. Meanwhile, Luciano’s 111 wRC+ is tied for 43rd, which doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but like Villarroel, there are quite a few hitters ahead of him who were old for their assigned level, or are just outright not a prospect.
So what does this all mean? I don’t think the presence or lack of DH “prospects’ really means anything other than what I wrote in the first half the article. They are clearly an afterthought in minor league player development. There is basically no correlation with being members of the the formerly DH-less National League.
I guess the real question here is should the D-backs put more into developing some full-time hitters at the DH position, or should they continue the approach of having no approach? Who would you put as THE DH on the 2026 D-backs Prospect All-Star team? Let me me know in the comments!
