Batting Average

 What is Batting Average?

Batting average is a measure of the percentage of at bats where a player obtained a hit. It does not include walks, hit by pitch, or sacrifices.

How is Batting Average used?

For many years, batting average was one of the most popular baseball stats, often used as a stand-in for a hitters overall skill. At the end of each season, the batting title is awarded to the player who leads the league in batting average, and the stat often appears on scoreboards and baseball cards.

However, in recent years, the rise of sabermetrics and advanced stats has led to a decrease in the emphasis on batting average. Today, more stat-savvy fans look at statistics like on-base percentage or on-base plus slugging as better measures of a hitter’s overall skill. Those stats incorporate the ability to take a walk, as well as accounting for the added value of home runs.

This goes along with changes to the game itself. In early baseball, hitters very rarely worked, and many did not see working the count or playing for walks as a good strategy. Additionally, home runs were rare during baseball’s Deadball Era. As walks and home runs have become more prominent, fans’ understanding of batting average has changed too.

How to calculate Batting Average?

How to calculate batting average? It is an extremely easy formula. You simply divide a player’s number of hits by his total number of at bats. The formula looks like this:

H / AB = AVG

So if a player had 100 hits in 400 at bats, they would have a batting average of .250

Batting Average Examples

The best career batting average belongs to Ty Cobb, who had a .366 batting average over his career. That’s 4,189 hits in 11,440 ABs. Ranking second is Oscar Charleston with .364.

In a single season, the best is .471 by Tetelo Vargas in the 1943 NNL. For the AL/NL, the record holder is Hugh Duffy, who hit .440 in 1894. Overall, there have been 58 qualified seasons where a player hit .400, none in the last 75 years. 

A .400 batting average is one of the craziest things a hitter could achieve, and there’s often excitement and interest around a player who managed to take a .400 average into June.

Batting Average Calculator

Interesting Batting Average Stats

See the batting average leaders on Baseball Reference

Filed under Statistics