The projected leader in DH plate appearances is 21-year-old Deyvison De Los Santos, who’s already had an interesting career: Signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Diamondbacks in 2019, taken in the Rule 5 draft by the Guardians in 2023, then swiftly returned to Arizona, and most recently sent to Miami in the A.J. Puk trade last summer.
De Los Santos is listed at 6-foot-1, 185 pounds, but looks like he hasn’t been measured since he was a teenager. He’s got big, big raw power, as evidenced by his 40 home runs in 137 across Double- and Triple-A last year, but he never walks, even against minor league competition. He’ll be interesting to watch, but he has to make the majors first.
The incumbent DH is Jonah Bride. Bride’s path to the majors was circuitous, taking him from a junior college to three years at the University of South Carolina, where he was an OBP-over-power third baseman whose carrying tool was getting plunked. Bride wore 43 pitches in 186 Division I games; his nickname at South Carolina was “Hit-Bride-Pitch.”
Now entering his fourth season in the majors (ish — he’s spent his whole major league career with the A’s and Marlins), Bride is taking revenge on the entity that caused him so much pain: baseballs. The 28-year-old hit .276/.357/.461 in 71 games, which makes him one of Miami’s better hitters.
Matt Mervis should cycle through DH as well. He didn’t hit much in extremely limited playing time with the Cubs, but he also didn’t get enough of a chance to write him off. The Marlins bought low on Mervis over the winter, trading Vidal Bruján to get him. He’ll strike out a lot, but this is also a guy who slugged .600 in the minors like clockwork, and Miami might as well see what he can do.
