Do you know how many qualified players batted .300 or better last year? The answer is seven. There were nine in 2023, 11 in ¡®22 and 14 in ¡®21. That is to say: The .300 batting average hitter -- long the benchmark for baseball excellence, really for more than a century -- is slowly becoming more and more of a rarity.
There are obvious reasons for this, starting with the fact that pitching is tougher than ever. Then there¡¯s the analytical revolution, which understands, in a way maybe GMs in the 1980s didn¡¯t, that while batting average is important, there are many other statistics that more precisely capture a player¡¯s offensive contributions.
But still, the allure of a .300 hitter remains vivid and prominent. It¡¯s just a classic baseball round number.
We are, obviously, rather early in the season, so we shouldn¡¯t take too much from the fact that 32 qualified players entered Tuesday¡¯s action at .300 or better. There are some big, bold averages that get everyone excited, even though we know they are bound to come down over time. What¡¯s fascinating, though, is how these players¡¯ approaches to reaching these numbers are so varied. There¡¯s no one way to get there.
Here¡¯s a closer look at six of the most intriguing players who began Tuesday at .325 or higher, players using different methods to take aim at an increasingly rare feat.
Aaron Judge, RF, Yankees
.384 BA (1st in MLB)
Oh, yeah: This guy. Judge, as always, is smashing the baseball, but part of what has elevated him from ¡°home run hitter¡± to ¡°Barry Bonds-ian dominance¡± has been his bat-to-ball contact. His strikeout rate (21.2 percent) is the lowest of his career and a bit lower than the MLB average. Meanwhile, he¡¯s hitting the ball just as hard as he always has, which is to say: harder than pretty much anyone in the sport.
That means Judge is getting the best of everything: He¡¯s hitting homers (seven) and entered Tuesday leading the Majors in hits (33), OBP (.490), OPS (1.188) and RBIs (25). Right now, you simply can¡¯t throw Judge anything, anywhere. After Bonds set the single-season home run record in 2001, he won batting titles two of the next three seasons. That¡¯s not out of the realm of possibility for Judge.
Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, Yankees
.372 BA (2nd in MLB)
For most of last season, there was widespread speculation that Goldschmidt¡¯s career might be coming to an end. In the final year of his contract with the Cardinals -- with whom he was the 2022 NL MVP -- he struggled for most of the year. In 2024, Goldschmidt was batting under .200 as late as May 13, and while he recovered a bit after that, his final average (.245) was a career low.
Goldschmidt¡¯s stronger second half (.271/.319/.480) helped earn him a one-year deal with the Yankees, where he has hit like ¡ well, not exactly like his old MVP self -- more like a different player entirely. The 37-year-old has only one homer this year, and his exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate are way down from 2024. He has only five doubles, so he really has become a singles hitter; it¡¯s strange seeing Goldschmidt hit like Tony Gwynn. (Actually, Gwynn hit a lot more homers.)
Goldschmidt has made up for the power outage with a lot more contact and a lot fewer strikeouts and ground balls. The result so far: the highest average of his career ¡ by 50 points.
But even if the average dips a bit, the Yankees are absolutely getting their money¡¯s worth.
Jacob Wilson, SS, Athletics
.354 BA (5th in MLB)
Wilson, the No. 6 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, made it into 28 games with the A¡¯s last year, debuting barely a year after the club selected him out of Grand Canyon University. That was part of the organization¡¯s recent pattern of aggressive promotions. (Just ask Nick Kurtz, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 Draft.)
It didn¡¯t work out for Wilson last year: He was injured in his MLB debut, missed more than a month and wound up batting .250 with no homers. The A¡¯s have gotten the Wilson they were waiting for in 2025, though, with the 23-year-old is not only batting over .350 but also slugging .500 with eight extra-base hits.
Wilson, of course, has always been a high-average guy, batting .401 during his brief time in the Minors (79 games). He¡¯s not a monster power hitter, and he has yet to draw a single walk this season, but he already looks like your favorite player from 1988.
Trevor Story, SS, Red Sox
BA: .337 (10th in MLB)
Story has struggled with injuries so much in his career, particularly since coming to Boston, that you can¡¯t blame Red Sox manager Alex Cora for making sure to give him days off at every opportunity. It sure worked out for him this week, with him getting Sunday off before the Patriots' Day game Monday ¡ a game in which Story went 3-for-4.
Seeing Story like this -- which is to say, ¡°healthy¡± -- is a reminder of what he can do, and it¡¯s even more exciting seeing him do it at Fenway Park, which has always seemed a natural fit for his fly ball-oriented swing. Through his first 10 games in Boston this season, he was batting .381 and slugging .619.
¡°There¡¯s that feeling of normalcy, of being settled in,¡± Story said this week, ¡°and not trying to battle for my health every single day.¡±
It remains to be seen if he can stay healthy all year, and he has never hit over .300 before. (Somewhat surprisingly, his career high as a Rockie was .294.) Even though Story no longer calls Coors Field home, he may never have a better situation than this current one.
Steven Kwan, LF, Guardians
BA: .333 (11th in MLB)
Believe it or not, Kwan has not, in fact, ever hit .300 in a big league season -- though he has come quite close. He hit .298 as a rookie in 2022 and .292 last year, despite being at a whopping .398 through June 16.
It was a steady fall after that, though. Kwan batted just .230 in 79 games the rest of the way, including .195 in September/October. I suppose it¡¯s possible he¡¯ll collapse like that again this year, but it sure seems unlikely. Kwan has combined his elite bat-to-ball skills (99th percentile for lowest whiff rate) with selectivity (87th percentile for lowest chase rate) to be a driver of offense for a Guardians team that needs every bit of it they can get.
Don¡¯t be surprised if Kwan passes the career-high 14 homers he hit last year, too. He already has four, despite bat speeds and exit velocities that rank at the bottom of the league. It¡¯s an unusual profile these days, but it works for Kwan. The trick now may be what he was unable to do last year: stay healthy.
Jung Hoo Lee, CF, Giants
BA: .329 (13th in MLB)
When the Giants brought in the former KBO MVP before last season, they thought they were getting a singles hitter who could steal bases and cause havoc on the basepaths. They instead got a guy who was caught three times in five steal attempts, hit only .262 and ended up sustaining a season-ending shoulder injury after just 37 games. It wasn¡¯t an ideal transition to the Majors.
That made most observers forget about Lee, which is why his emergence for one of the most surprising teams in baseball has been so exciting. The most fun part of Lee¡¯s game so far is that he¡¯s not just hitting for average, he¡¯s hitting for power, too. He has three homers, two triples and an MLB-leading 10 doubles, leading to a .600 slugging percentage. Oh, and he has already stolen more bases (three) than he did all last year.
Lee isn¡¯t being used as a table-setter, either, with Giants manager Bob Melvin typically batting him third in the order rather than leadoff. Speed, contact and more pop than people thought -- no wonder this guy won an MVP. This might stick, too: He once hit .360 for a full season in Korea.