What Is the Designated Hitter (DH) in Baseball?

The designated hitter bats in the lineup in place of the pitcher and takes no defensive position. Pitchers are typically weak hitters, so the DH keeps a dedicated batter — often a power hitter or an aging star whose defense has slipped — in the order, raising the offense without the pitcher ever having to bat. The DH does nothing on defense; the role is purely to hit.

The American League introduced the DH in 1973 to boost offense and extend the careers of strong hitters. The National League resisted for nearly 50 years, with pitchers batting in NL games. MLB finally made the DH universal — used in both leagues — starting in the 2022 season, ending one of the sport's longest-running rules differences between its two leagues.

The universal DH means both the American and National Leagues use the designated hitter, which has been the case since 2022. Before that, whether pitchers batted depended on the ballpark: NL rules in NL parks, AL rules in AL parks, which complicated interleague and World Series games. The universal DH standardized the rule across all of MLB.

The 'Ohtani rule,' adopted alongside the universal DH in 2022, lets a starting pitcher who is also the designated hitter remain in the game as the DH even after he is removed from the mound. It was created for two-way star Shohei Ohtani, so a team does not lose its DH slot when its pitcher-hitter stops pitching. Without the rule, leaving the mound would have ended his day at the plate too.

No. The whole point of the DH is that the player only hits and never takes a fielding position. If a team wants to put its DH in the field during a game, it can, but doing so forfeits the designated-hitter spot for the rest of the game, and the pitcher's position then bats normally. In practice the DH stays in the dugout between at-bats.

Yes. Since the universal DH arrived in 2022, the designated hitter is used throughout the regular season and the [MLB playoffs](/how-do-the-mlb-playoffs-work/), including the World Series, in both leagues. Before 2022, World Series DH usage flip-flopped by ballpark, which added a strategic wrinkle that no longer exists now that the rule is uniform.

Traditionalists argued that making the pitcher bat added strategy — sacrifice bunts, double switches, and pinch-hitting decisions — and preserved a purer form of the game. Supporters countered that pitchers were automatic outs and that the DH produced more offense and protected hitters' careers. The debate ran for almost half a century before the universal DH settled it in 2022.