Batting average: the beloved liar
Why did a .250 hitter just sign a bigger contract than a .300 hitter?
Batting average is the first stat every fan learns: hits divided by at-bats. It feels like 'how good is this hitter?' — but it quietly ignores two enormous things.
What it ignores
First: walks don't count at all. A hitter who works a walk did something valuable — he's on base, he didn't make an out — and AVG pretends it never happened. Second: every hit counts the same. A bloop single and a 450-foot homer are identical entries in the AVG ledger.
So a .250 hitter who walks constantly and hits 35 homers can easily be more valuable than a .300 hitter who never walks and slaps singles. Front offices know this; that's the contract mystery solved. AVG isn't useless — it just answers a much narrower question than you think: 'when this player swings and doesn't walk, how often does a hit land?'
The formula (optional — skippable)
AVG = Hits ÷ At-Bats
At-bats exclude walks, hit-by-pitch, and sacrifices — which is exactly the problem.
How this stat lies to you
- It treats a walk as a non-event, so patient hitters look worse than they are.
- It treats all hits equally, so power hitters look no better than singles hitters.
- Batting .300 vs .260 over a month is ~4 hits — small samples make AVG jump around wildly.
Check yourself
1. Player A hits .300 with no walks and all singles. Player B hits .250 with 90 walks and 35 HR. Who almost certainly helped his team more?
2. What does AVG do with a walk?