BasicHitting
AVG
Batting Average
Hits divided by at-bats. Plate appearances that aren't at-bats, like walks, hit-by-pitches and sacrifices, are left out.
Simple explanation
Batting average is the oldest number in baseball and the one everybody has heard of. Being a .300 hitter is practically a title of its own.
It misses two things, though. A walk doesn't count at all, and a single and a home run each count as one hit. Take a .300 hitter who never walks and only hits singles, and a .260 hitter who draws plenty of walks and hits for extra bases. Batting average gives you no way to sort out which of them helps his team more.
Detailed explanation
AVG = H ÷ AB
- H
- hits
- AB
- at-bats = plate appearances − walks − hit by pitch − sacrifice bunts − sacrifice flies − catcher's interference
Walks and hit-by-pitches come out of at-bats but go into on-base percentage, so a hitter's OBP is usually higher than his average. When the gap between the two is unusually wide, he's drawing walks or getting plunked often.
Average rises and falls with whether balls in play drop for hits. Over a whole season, well-struck balls get caught and bloop singles fall in, again and again, so one hitter's average can move quite a bit from year to year. Pull out just that swing and you have BABIP.
It still has its uses. It's the starting point for judging how well a hitter makes contact, and a slash line of average, OBP and slugging (.280/.350/.450, say) gives you a quick sketch of what kind of hitter he is. MLB as a whole hit .244 in 2026, nearly identical to the 2025 mark of .245.
Common misconception
“The higher a hitter's batting average, the more he contributes on offense.”
A lower-average hitter who walks a lot and hits for power can be the bigger run producer.