giancarlo stanton has the highest batting average in the major leagues.
giancarlo stanton has the highest batting average in the major leagues.
who has the highest batting average in the major leagues?
giancarlo stanton
outfielder ty cobb, whose career ended in 1928, has the highest batting average in major league baseball (mlb) history. he batted .366 over 24 seasons, mostly with the detroit tigers. in addition, he won a record 11 batting titles for leading the american league in ba over the course of an entire season. he batted over .360 in 11 consecutive seasons from 1909 to 1919. rogers hornsby has the second highest ba of all-time, at .358. he won seven batting titles in the national league (nl) and has the highest nl average in a single season since 1900, when he batted .424 in 1924. he batted over .370 in six consecutive seasons.
list of major league baseball career batting average leaders
williams' 1941 season is often considered to be the best offensive season of all time, though the mvp award would go to dimaggio. the .406 batting average—his first of six batting championships—is still the highest single-season average in red sox history and the highest batting average in the major leagues since 1924, and the last time any major league player has hit over .400 for a season after averaging at least 3.1 plate appearances per game. ("if i had known hitting .400 was going to be such a big deal", he quipped in 1991, "i would have done it again.") williams' on-base percentage of .553 and slugging percentage of .735 that season are both also the highest single-season averages in red sox history. the .553 obp stood as a major league record until it was broken by barry bonds in 2002 and his .735 slugging percentage was the highest mark in the major leagues between 1932 and 1994. his ops of 1.287 that year, a red sox record, was the highest in the major leagues between 1923 and 2001. despite playing in only 143 games that year, williams led the league with 135 runs scored and 37 home runs, and he finished third with 335 total bases, the most home runs, runs scored, and total bases by a red sox player since jimmie foxx's in 1938. williams placed second in mvp voting; dimaggio won, 291 votes to 254, on the strength of his record-breaking 56-game hitting streak and league-leading 125 rbi.
ted williams