ESPN's Rob Neyer quotes Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan (subscription required) on why AL teams in need of a productive DH should pony up for Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn or Bobby Abreu). While I agree it's ridiculous to have a weak-hitting DH, there's a cost (even in the AL) to having an expensive player on the roster who's a liability in the field.

It's somewhat like fantasy baseball where you'd rather have an extra shortstop or outfielder in your utility slot than a DH-only player. Why? Because it gives you roster flexibility. If the utility spot is the only place you can play someone, then you can't, for example, replace an injured outfielder with a first baseman (by moving the OF who was at UTIL to OF and putting the 1B in at UTIL).

In real baseball, you'd have a similar problem - if you had a legit OF at DH, you could replace an injured corner man and call up a hot hitting first base prospect to play DH for a month. (Or move your first baseman there, and let the prospect share time at first base).

Also, if you have a player coming back from an injury, it's nice to be able to use that DH slot when he's working his way back to health. Essentially, it's a great slot to have unblocked because any player can fill it as needed.

The question in fantasy is - given that a player is DH-only, how far down your cheat sheet do you drop him versus an OF with similar hitting skills? Maybe a round, a round and a half? But there is |STAR|some|STAR| downgrade.

That said, when you talk about having a below-average hitter at DH, it's as Joe says: "a good way to torpedo your offense." My point is only that there's a cost to having a highly-paid and largely immovable player at DH, even if it's hugely outweighed by the benefit of having an excellent hitter in your lineup. And that might explain why teams have trouble valuing those players.

In real life, of course, you |STAR|can|STAR| move Manny or Dunn or Abreu to the OF - it'll just cost you a few runs and your pitchers some potential extra work. And don't get me wrong, I agree with Sheehan and Neyer for the most part - my point is just that the existence of the DH doesn't remove a player's fielding liabilities from the equation entirely.