What is Batting Average?

Hello everyone, welcome back to Baseball Connect. In this video, we will be talking about one of the oldest and most widely used hitting metrics in the history of baseball, batting average.

Batting Average Explained

Batting average is a stat that tells us how many hits a player averages per at-bat. To calculate batting average, simply take the number of hits and divide it by the number of at-bats.

Here is a quick example. A hitter has 560 at-bats in a season, and they get 142 hits. 142 hits divided by 560 ABs is equal to a batting average of .253. Essentially, this tells us that on average, this hitter recorded a hit in 25.3% of their at-bats.

Batting average, while simple in both its concept and application, leaves out several important factors. When evaluating hitters, we want to know how often they get on base and the breakdown of the types of hits they are getting. 

Batting average weighs all hits the same, however, singles, doubles, triples, and home runs all have different weights as it pertains to run production. For this reason, it’s important to consider other offensive stats in order to get an objective view of a player’s offensive impact.

Additionally, batting average is not always indicative of a player’s offensive potential in regards to their ability to impact the ball or even one day be a future all-star. When it comes to player development, you might not judge a High-A or Low-A player based on his batting average alone. We may look more toward batted ball data to gain a better feel of his potential and progress in this scenario.

Summary

By conventional wisdom, a hitter with a high batting average is a very productive player, but that statement can have its shortcomings. There are other statistics that can measure a hitter’s total offensive performance which are far more correlated to producing runs. 

Hitters can be above-average offensive producers even if they have a low batting average. That being said, understanding batting average is the beginning of learning how to analyze a player’s offensive performance.