In baseball, batting average (AVG) is a measure of a batter's success rate in achieving a hit during an at bat. In Major League Baseball (MLB), it is calculated by dividing a player's hits by his at bats (AB). In MLB, a player in each league[L] wins the "batting title" each season for having the highest batting average that year.[1][2] The American League (AL) winner is known as the "Rod Carew American League Batting Champion", while the National League (NL) leader is designated the "Tony Gwynn National League Batting Champion". Since 1957,[3] a player must have 3.1 plate appearances (PA) per scheduled game in that league (for a total of 502 over the current 162-game season) to qualify for the batting title.[4] However, if a player's lead in AVG is sufficiently large that enough hitless at bats can be added to reach this requirement and the player still would have the highest batting average, he wins the title.[4] Tony Gwynn, for example, had 159 hits in 451 ABs in 1996 (.353 average) but only 498 PAs.[5] Gwynn's batting average would have dropped to .349 (159 hits in 455 ABs) with four hitless ABs added to reach the 502 PA requirement, but this would still have been higher than the next-highest eligible player (Ellis Burks with a .344 average), so he was awarded the 1996 NL batting title.[6] MLB officially incorporated Negro League statistics into its record book on Wednesday, May 29, 2024.[7] On December 16, 2020, MLB announced that the records of Negro League Baseball from 1920-1948 would be designated as major league status.[8] From 2020-2024, MLB and the Elias Sports Bureau, completed a comprehensive review of the Seamheads database in coordination with Retrosheet. The MLB database combines statistics from the Negro Leagues with existing data from the AL, NL, and other Major Leagues throughout history.[7] As such, seven different leagues that existed during that time period are now recognized as being on the same level as MLB, which include: the Negro National League (I) (1920-1931); the Eastern Colored League (1923-1928); the American Negro League (1929); the East-West League (1932); the Negro Southern League (1932); the Negro National League (II) (1933-1948); and the Negro American League (1937-1948).
The first batting average champion in the NL was Ross Barnes; in the league's inaugural 1876 season, Barnes batted .429 for the Chicago White Stockings.[9] The AL was established in 1901, and Hall of Fame second baseman Nap Lajoie led that league with a .426 average for the Philadelphia Athletics.[10] Josh Gibson of the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, is recognized as the MLB all-time batting champion, with a career batting average of .372.[11] Gibson amassed career totals of 838 hits in 2,255 at-bats and 628 games,[12] and is also the MLB all-time career leader in Slugging (SLG) percentage and On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS) percentage.
Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers, holds the second highest career batting average of .367, and led the AL in average in 11 (or 12) seasons.[13] Honus Wagner and Gwynn are tied for the second-most titles, with eight apiece in the NL.[5][14] It is unclear whether Lajoie or Cobb won the 1910 AL title, with some sources attributing the title to each man.[1910a] If Cobb is credited with the 1910 title, he won 9 consecutive titles from 1907 to 1915 and 12 total titles for his career. Otherwise, Rogers Hornsby won the most consecutive titles, with six from 1920 to 1925. Without the 1910 title, Cobb still led the league in five consecutive seasons from 1911 to 1915. Cobb holds the record for highest average in two and three consecutive seasons (.414 from 1911 to 1912 and .408 from 1911 to 1913), but Hornsby holds the record for four and five consecutive seasons (.404 from 1922 to 1925 and .402 from 1921 to 1925).[15] Wagner, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, and Gwynn have each won four consecutive titles. Lajoie also had a streak of four league-leading seasons from 1901 to 1904 if he is credited with the contested AL title in 1902.[1902a] At the 2016 MLB All-Star Game in San Diego, MLB announced that the AL and NL batting champions would henceforth be named in honor of Carew and Gwynn, respectively. Gwynn won all eight titles in the NL with the San Diego Padres, while Carew was a seven-time AL batting champion.[16][17]
Barnes' initial NL-leading average of .4286 (.429) in 1876 set the single-season record which stood for a decade.[18] Tip O'Neill topped this total with a .4352 (.435) average in 1887. O'Neill's batting average had to be calculated without counting walks as hits, because of the walk-as-base-hit rule being in effect that year only. Hugh Duffy broke O'Neill's record for highest mark in 1894 by posting a .4397 (.440) batting average with the Boston Beaneaters, which is considered the third highest mark of all-time.[18] Charlie "Chino" Smith holds the second highest mark of .4512 (.451) in 1929 with the New York Lincoln Giants.[19] Josh Gibson currently holds the highest mark in Major League history by posting a .4658 (.466) batting average in 1943 with the Homestead Grays.[7]
Under the current 3.1 PA qualification, players have posted a .400 batting average for a season 28 times.[20] Ted Williams' .4057 in 1941 is the most recent such season, one of 13 to occur since 1900.[20] George Brett in 1980 is the only player to maintain a .400 average into September since 1941.[21] Additionally, only Brett and John Olerud in 1993 maintained such an average into August.[21] With the modern scarcity of .400 hitters, recent players who have been above .400 early in the season, such as Chipper Jones in 2008, have drawn significant attention in the media.[21][22] Brett's .390 in 1980 and Gwynn's .394 in 1994 are the only seasons in which a player reached .390 since 1941. Carl Yastrzemski's .301 in the 1968 American League was the lowest batting average ever to lead a league. Willie Keeler's 1897, Zack Wheat's 1918, and Rod Carew's 1972 are the only three title seasons in which the winner hit no home runs.[23][24] Joe Mauer's 2006 title made him the first catcher to ever win an AL batting title, and his third title in 2009 surpassed Ernie Lombardi's previous record of two titles for a catcher in any league.[25][26][27][28]
The closest finish in a batting race came in 1945 when Snuffy Stirnweiss batted .309, topping Tony Cuccinello's .308 average for the American League title by .00008.[29][30] George Kell beat out Williams in 1949 by .00015.[29] The closest race in the National League came in 2003 when Albert Pujols held off Todd Helton on the last day of the season by .00022.[29][31] The closest National League race before that was in 1931 with Chick Hafey edging out Bill Terry by .00028.[29] Lajoie's .426 average in 1901 was 86 points higher than runner-up Mike Donlin's .340, the largest margin of victory for a batting champion. Cap Anson's .399 in 1881 was 71 points higher than Joe Start in 1881, the widest margin in the National League.
In 2024, Luis Arraez became the first player in MLB history to win a batting title with three different teams, and in three consecutive seasons: Minnesota Twins (AL) in 2022; Miami Marlins (NL) in 2023; and San Diego Padres (NL) in 2024.[32] Arraez played 33 games with the Miami Marlins and 117 games with the San Diego Padres in 2024, resulting in a .314 average, with a combined 200 hits in 637 at-bats. In 2020, D.J. LeMahieu of the New York Yankees won the AL batting title, thereby becoming the first player to definitively win batting titles in both the American and National Leagues; he had also won the NL batting title in 2016 as a member of the Colorado Rockies. However, Ed Delahanty would have that distinction if he is credited with the disputed 1902 American League title, as he was also the 1899 National League champion. The only other player to win titles in multiple leagues was Pete Browning, who won American Association titles in 1882 and 1885, along with the lone Players' League championship in 1890. Barnes and Deacon White each won National Association and National League titles, but the National Association is not regarded as an official league.[L] In addition, Oscar Charleston won batting championships in the Negro National League and Eastern Colored League. Charleston also holds the third all-time highest career batting average of .363 during a span of 21 years (1920-1941). In 1921, Charleston posted a career-best batting average of .434 with the St. Louis Giants. [33]
In 1990, Willie McGee posted a .335 average over 542 at-bats in the NL for the Saint Louis Cardinals before being traded to Oakland of the American League on August 29.[34] Although McGee finished the season in the AL, he had enough PA's in the NL to qualify for the NL batting title, which he won narrowly over Eddie Murray's .330. However, McGee batted .274 that season in the AL, bringing down his overall average to .324 and allowing Murray to lead the majors in batting average and not win a batting title.[34][35]
Winner | Player with the highest batting average (AVG) in the league |
AVG | The winner's batting average |
Runner-up | Player with the second-highest batting average in the league |
2nd AVG | The second-highest batting average |
League | Denoted only for players outside of the modern major leagues |
† | Member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum |
In the 28-year major league history, nine players won a league batting title multiple times: Oscar Charleston (3), Josh Gibson (3), Monte Irvin (2), Oscar Johnson (2), Buck Leonard (2), Jud Wilson (2), Artie Wilson (2), Mule Suttles (2), and Turkey Stearnes (2).