IntermediateHitting · Tracking
xBA
Expected Batting Average
A batting average built from how often balls with similar exit velocity and launch angle have gone for hits.
.2432026 MLB average (2025: .243)
Simple explanation
A screaming liner hit right at a fielder is an out, and a blooper that drops between two fielders is a hit. Batting average only counts the results. xBA counts what the contact looked like.
Each batted ball gets a value for how often balls like it usually become hits, strikeouts go in as outs, and the season number comes from adding those up. If a hitter's actual average is well above his xBA, luck may have helped, and if it's well below, the reverse.
Benchmarks
- .224
- Bottom 10%
- .255
- Median
- .283
- Top 10%
Distribution of the 135 qualified hitters in 2026.
Detailed explanation
The reference data is every batted ball since 2015, when Statcast went into every park. Since 2019, a hitter's seasonal sprint speed is also factored in on topped and weakly hit balls, which gives some credit for infield hits by fast runners.
Direction isn't part of it. A hitter who keeps hitting the ball to the same spots, right where fielders stand, can post an actual average below his xBA year after year.
In 2017 and 2018 it was shown as a percentage called Hit Probability, and in 2019 it moved to the batting-average scale as xBA. The same approach gives xSLG for slugging and xwOBA for overall offense.
Common misconception
“A hitter batting above his xBA is about to come back down.”
There's a pull back toward the average, but it doesn't have to even out. Some hitters keep running into factors xBA doesn't know about, like fielder positioning or their home park.