List of Major League Baseball career batting average leaders explained

In baseball, the batting average (BA) is defined by the number of hits divided by at bats. It is usually reported to three decimal places and pronounced as if it were multiplied by 1,000: a player with a batting average of .300 is "batting three-hundred." A point (or percentage point) is understood to be .001. If necessary to break ties, batting averages could be taken to more than three decimal places.

Catcher Josh Gibson, whose career ended in 1946, has the highest batting average in Major League Baseball (MLB) history. He batted .372 over 14 seasons, mostly with the Homestead Grays. In addition, he also holds the single-season record for highest batting average in major league history at .466 in 1943. Gibson never record a batting average of under .310 in any full season. Ty Cobb is second all-time with a career batting average of .366. He won a record 11 batting titles in the American League from 1907–1909, 1911–1915 and 1917–1919. Oscar Charleston is third with a career batting average of .364. He is the only player to have won consecutive Triple Crowns, having done so in 1924 and 1925.

A player must have a minimum of 5,000 at-bats to qualify for the list. For Negro League players, the minimum is set at 1,800 at-bats, or 5,000 at-bats combining both Negro League and AL/NL appearances.

Key

Rank	Rank among leaders in career batting average. A blank field indicates a tie.
Player	Name of the player.
BA	Total career batting average.
	Denotes elected to National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bold	Denotes active player.

List

Different sources of baseball records present somewhat differing lists of career batting average leaders. Until the incorporation of statistics from Negro league baseball into major-league records in 2024, Ty Cobb was the consensus leader. Subsequently, he was supplanted by Josh Gibson on the official MLB leaderboard.^[1]

, no active player appears in the below list; the active player ranking highest is Jose Altuve, tied at 141st with a .3066 career batting average.

Rank	Player	BA
1	Josh Gibson *	.3716
2	Ty Cobb *	.3662
3	Oscar Charleston *	.3634
4	Rogers Hornsby *	.3585
5	Jud Wilson *	.3500
6	Turkey Stearnes *	.3477
7	Ed Delahanty *	.3458
8	Buck Leonard *	.3448
9	Tris Speaker *	.3447
10	Billy Hamilton *
11	Ted Williams *
12	Dan Brouthers *	.3424
13	Babe Ruth *	.3421
14	Harry Heilmann *	.3416
15	Willie Keeler *	.3413
16	Bill Terry *	.3412
17	George Sisler *
18	Lou Gehrig *
19	Mule Suttles *	.3390
20	Jesse Burkett *
21	Tony Gwynn *
22	Nap Lajoie *
23	Bullet Rogan	.3369
24	Cristóbal Torriente	.3356
25	Ben Taylor	.3347
26	Al Simmons *	.3342
27	Paul Waner *
28	Eddie Collins *
29	Fats Jenkins	.3330
30	Sam Thompson *	.3314
31	Cap Anson *
32	Stan Musial *
33	Dick Lundy
34	Red Parnell
35	Heinie Manush *
36	Willie Wells *	.3285
37	Wade Boggs *	.3279
38	Rod Carew *	.3278
39	Honus Wagner *	.3276
40	Hugh Duffy *
41	Biz Mackey *	.3254
42	Jimmie Foxx *	.3253
43	Earle Combs *	.3247
44	Joe DiMaggio *	.3246
45	Babe Herman	.3245
46	Cool Papa Bell *	.3241
47	Joe Medwick *	.3236
48	Hurley McNair	.3232
49	Edd Roush *	.3227
50	Sam Rice *	.3223

Rank	Player	BA
51	George Scales	.3218
52	Chaney White	.3214
53	Kiki Cuyler *
54
55	Charlie Gehringer *	.3204
56	Chuck Klein *	.3201
57	Pie Traynor *
58	Mickey Cochrane *
59	Kirby Puckett *	.3181
60	Earl Averill *	.3178
61	Vladimir Guerrero
62	Arky Vaughan *
63	Roberto Clemente *
64	Joe Kelley *	.3169
65	Zack Wheat *	.3167
66	Roger Connor *
67	Lloyd Waner *
68	Todd Helton *
69	George Van Haltren	.3163
70	Frankie Frisch *	.3161
71	Goose Goslin *	.3160
72	George Carr	.3151
73	Hank Greenberg *	.3135
74	Jackie Robinson *	.3133
75	Jack Fournier	.3132
76	Elmer Flick *	.3130
77	Nomar Garciaparra
78	Larry Walker *
79	Bill Dickey *	.3125
80	Manny Ramírez
81	Johnny Mize *
82	Joe Sewell *
83	Fred Clarke *
84	Edgar Martínez *	.3115
85	Freddie Lindstrom *
86	Bing Miller	.3113
87		.3112
88		.3110
89		.3108
90		.3107
91	Luke Appling *
92	Jim O'Rourke *
93		.3099
94	Jim Bottomley *	.3096
95	Derek Jeter *	.3095
96	Sam Crawford *	.3094
97	Bob Meusel	.3092
98	Magglio Ordóñez	.3090
99	Jack Tobin
100	Branch Russell

Source:^[2]

See also

• List of Major League Baseball players with a .400 batting average in a season
• List of Major League Baseball career on-base percentage leaders
• List of Major League Baseball career slugging percentage leaders
• List of Major League Baseball career OPS leaders

External links

• Web site: Career Leaders & Records for Batting Average . Baseball-Reference.com.
• Web site: Career Leaders For Batting Average: The Top 1,000 Best Batting Averages in MLB History . Baseball Almanac.

Notes and References

1. News: Castrovince . Anthony . What to know about Negro Leagues stats entering MLB record . 9 June 2024 . . 29 May 2024 . en.
2. Web site: Career Leaders & Records for Batting Average. Baseball-Reference.com. June 10, 2024.