Luke Voit was right, but not about everyone.
Nearly six seasons have passed since we asked the question of whether the .300 hitter -- baseball's timeless standard for batting prowess -- was becoming a thing of the past. The investigation was prompted by Voit telling a reporter back then, "I feel like batting average isn't a thing now."
Even after MLB's attempt to address the issue by banning extreme shifts, the downward trend of batting average continues. The overall average this season (.244) is just one point better than the record low for non-pitchers in a campaign. And that record was set in 2022, the last year before the shift ban went into effect.
When league averages dive, so does the preponderance of .300 hitters, but we've never seen anything like this. Batting average leaderboards boggle the mind. There are currently just eight qualifying hitters -- across both leagues -- hitting at least .300. There are just two active players (minimum 3,000 plate appearances) who have a career average that high.
Despite all of this, these strange batting average leaderboards tell us another story: You can still hit .300 even if it isn't your primary aim. A precious few have cleared the bar or even soared over it. What's more, these trend-defying hitters, those sporting averages reminiscent of stars' from generations past, are doing so while enjoying MVP-level campaigns. They lead winning teams angling for the playoffs. They aren't playing at that level because of batting average alone, but the high averages are part of the package.
How are they doing it? Are they charting paths others can follow? Here's a closer look at MLB's .300 hitters, circa 2024.
First: What is a good batting average in 2024?
When longtime baseball fans look at the league hitting leaders and see the paucity of .300 averages, it can be disorienting. What, by these new standards, is normal? Those who grew up following the exploits of George Brett, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn might wonder what is good.
In the American League, just six qualifying batters are over the .300 line -- and that's the healthy leaderboard. In the National League, there are only two, and if not for Luis Arraez's strikeout-defying wizardry, it would be entirely possible that the Senior Circuit could feature the first sub-.300 champ. As it stands, Arraez's .317 mark has him a virtual shoo-in to remain in the .300 club with his third straight batting title. It's an open question whether he will remain the only NL member.
To illustrate where things stand: The Dodgers' Freddie Freeman is a career .300 hitter -- right on the nose. He's one of a lonesome pair, joined by Jose Altuve (.307) as the only active .300 hitters (minimum 3,000 career plate appearances). Freeman's .282 average this season has been a downer, his lowest mark in nearly a decade. A century ago, that mark would be below the big-league average. In 2024, it ranks 10th in the NL.
This is not normal. What was normal was 1979. The aggregate slash line since 1920, or since the dawn of the live ball era, is .261/.329/.397. In 1979, the slash line was .265/.330/.397 -- the closest across-the-board match of the historical averages.
Thus, the typical hitter in 1979 was 21 points better in average than the typical 2024 batter. A .300 hitter in 1979 translates to a .279 hitter right now. In that context, Freeman's 10th-ranked .282 mark starts to make more sense. It also makes the league-leading totals by Bobby Witt Jr., Aaron Judge, Arraez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. seem even more special.
The big five
We don't know what the final count of qualifying .300 hitters will be this season, but let's zero in on the fact that we have so few of them. If we finish where we are, it won't be a single-season record, but that doesn't mean we aren't near rock bottom.
In a single season, there were fewer .300 qualifiers in 1968, the Year of the Pitcher, when there were just six. Only one of them played in the AL -- Carl Yastrzemski, who won the batting title at .301, 11 points better than second-place Danny Cater. However, there were 16 .300 hitters in the majors in 1967 and 18 in 1969. The 1968 figure was a one-season extreme.
That's not the case now, as there were just nine such hitters last year. Let's say we end 2024 with eight. The two-season count -- 17 combined in 2023 and 2024 -- would be the lowest two-year total in history. In 1907 and 1908, the heart of the dead ball era, the two campaigns together featured 18 .300 hitters. That's the current nadir, but three weeks from now we might have a new champ.
In some ways, it makes understanding the hitters who aren't part of the trend that much more important. If nothing else, they prove that hitting .300 over at least 502 plate appearances, even in the context of 2024 hitting challenges, is not impossible.
Let's examine the top five hitters of 2024.
Bobby Witt Jr. (.333, or .354 if converted to 1979 standards)
How is he doing it? By being good at almost everything.
Witt's .333 average leads the majors. There is no time in baseball history in which that would not have been an admirable average, but in 2024, it's borderline surreal. According to FanGraphs, Witt's average-plus (AVG+), which compares a player's number in a category to the league average, is 139. That ranks 12th all time for qualifying batters in full seasons (or not 2020).
Here are the five season-ending averages for those just ahead of Witt on that leaderboard: Boggs (.368, 1985), Joe Torre (.363, 1971), Carew (.359, 1975), Barry Bonds (.370, 2002) and Mookie Betts (.346, 2018). The average for those five combined is about .361. Given a different historical context, that's the kind of level Witt might be at.
There is no one way Witt is doing this.
More than anything, he is adaptable at the plate. Power? Witt's average home run distance (410.4 feet, per TruMedia) ranks in the 91st percentile across the majors, higher than Judge, among others. But Witt only ranks 36th in hard-hit average, per FanGraphs. According to bat tracking data at Statcast, Witt ranks 27th in average bat speed, but fewer than half his swings fall into the "fast swing" category. His swing length (7.1 feet) is below the big league average.
That quick, compact swing allows Witt to turn on a pitch when the opportunity arises while also churning out the line drives (74th percentile) and using the whole field (12th percentile in balls pulled) as well as anybody. The shift, if it still existed, would be useless against Witt. He's not a perfect hitter; he can become too aggressive at times, as reflected in a high chase rate (21st percentile). But he gets the bat on the ball, with a 15.1% strikeout rate that puts him in the 87th percentile. It's not in Arraez territory, but it's strong.
On top of all that, Witt easily tops Statcast's leaderboard in sprint speed (30.5 feet per second). Any ground ball an infielder has to flag down is at risk of becoming a base hit. He's got 26 infield hits on the season -- 15 more than Judge, for example.
Is it replicable? Let's see. Plus power and bat speed. Off-the-charts running speeds. Well above-average contact ability. A compact swing and whole field spray chart. For all of the justified hype around Witt's athleticism, it's the skill and technique aspects of his game that mark Witt as a superstar. The overaggression is the one negative, and that's something he can get better at as he matures because, remember, Witt is still only 24.
Yes, it's replicable -- but perhaps only by Witt. There's a reason he's ESPN's first most exciting player in baseball.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (.321, or .342 in 1979)
How is he doing it? Controlled aggression.
Guerrero generates top-shelf exit velocities, ranking in the 98th percentile in average exit velo and 99th percentile in hard-hit rate. He swings hard, and while he can chase, he's above average in that regard. What makes Guerrero stand out among other mashers is his combination of patience and aggression.
This is an obvious paradox, but that's Guerrero. His chase rate is in the 55th percentile -- good, but not elite. But his walk rate is strong and despite the chases, his 14.1% strikeout rate is even better than Witt's. His overall swing rate is about 50%, which puts him square in the middle of the league. But when he swings, he does not get cheated.
Guerrero's weakness has always been ground ball rate. Only two players (Arraez and Tampa Bay's Yandy Diaz) have hit more grounders. The higher Guerrero's average launch angle is, the better his overall line turns out to be -- unless he goes overboard, as often happened in 2023, which can lead to a spike in popouts.
Is it replicable? The Guerrero we've seen since early May is basically the same guy who nearly won the AL MVP award in 2021, when he was 22. As Guerrero hits his prime, he's certainly capable of doing this over a multiyear period.
Guerrero also isn't a bad model for other mashers. He swings hard but he doesn't swing at everything. He's not a great athlete, but because he uses the whole field and produces a lot of line drives in addition to elite exit velocities, he's no pure slugger, either.
That's not to deny how special Guerrero is. You can try to do what he does but you'd be hard-pressed to match his results. But unlike Witt, whose skill set is impossible to emulate, at least you gain something from trying.
Aaron Judge (.319, or .340 in 1979)
How is he doing it? He's Aaron Judge.
Really, you could almost leave it at that. Judge is in a class of one, which is why he's the AL single-season home run champ and the most awe-inspiring hitter in the game.
All you have to do is look at Judge in uniform to understand how he produces all of those homers. It's why we track Yankee games even if we're not fans, because every Judge at-bat is an event. But lost in the flurry of majestic drives is the simple fact that Judge is not merely a slugger in the mold of, say, a Dave Kingman -- he's a great hitter. Full stop.
There are two primary aspects to batting average, though there are many subfactors in each category. Those top-level aspects are simple:
1. How often do you put the ball in play?
2. How often do you get a hit once it's in play?
Judge has never been elite in that first category, but as his swing decisions have improved, his strikeout rates have improved to a remarkable degree. Through age-27, Judge had struck out in 31.6% of his plate appearances. Since then, he's at 25.6%. This year, he's at a career-best 24.2%, even as he's topped the 50-homer mark for the third time.
That evolution is not inevitable and it's not a mere function of pitchers being understandably terrified of throwing the ball near the plate when Judge is standing there. The one player who has consistently matched Judge's exit velocities over his career is teammate Giancarlo Stanton. Dangerous as he is, Stanton has settled in at about a rock-steady 30% strikeout rate.
That explains why Judge's average has improved over his career, but not necessarily why that average has actually been good. And it has been: Since the start of the 2021 season, and during the worst of this historical MLB-level dip in average, he's hit an aggregate .299. Well, if he hasn't been elite at getting the ball in play, he must be elite at that other thing.
Indeed, he has. Judge has a career average on balls in play of .344, 49 points better than the MLB average over that span. This season, he's at .367 when the MLB average is .290. Homers are hits, obviously, and Judge's average benefits from those. He's hitting .245 in non-homer at-bats, considerably less than Witt (.297) and Guerrero (.285).
But that's still 18 points better than the MLB average (.227). If you take strikeouts out of the equation, you land at Judge's BABIP. And that's a function of, you guessed it, hitting the tar out of the ball. According to TruMedia, Judge's average exit velocity when he isn't hitting the ball over a fence (93.7 mph) ranks third in the majors, behind Pittsburgh's Oneil Cruz and the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani.
Incidentally, in this last measure -- non-homer exit velo -- Guerrero (93.3 mph) and Witt (92.1) join Judge in the top 10. In other words, hitting the ball hard plays, even when you don't end up trotting around the baes.
Is it replicable? The only player in baseball history who has a better at-bats per homer rate than Judge's 11.42 is Mark McGwire (10.61). Even though McGwire played in a vastly more friendly age for hitters, his career average (.263) pales in comparison to Judge (.287).
So, no. There is only one. He's Aaron Judge.
Luis Arraez (.317, or .338 in 1979)
How is he doing it? By being the most anti-2024 player imaginable.
The release of Statcast's bat tracking data to their public outlet has really hammered this home. We already knew Arraez was a soft-hit outlier. According to TruMedia, Arraez is hitting an MLB-best .284 on balls hit at less than 95 miles per hour, the statistical threshold for a hard-hit ball, during his career. His 495 hits of that type are 48 more than anyone else (Whit Merrifield is second).
We also knew Arraez had a preternatural ability to get the bat on the ball. His career 6.8% strikeout rate is 2.2% better than any other hitter and is less than a third of the MLB average during that time. This season, he's at an unreal 3.2%.
We always knew Arraez emphasized bat control over bat speed. Now we have a number for that: According to Statcast, Arraez's average bat speed (63.1 mph) is the lowest in the majors. His rate of fast swings (0.1%) is almost nonexistent. If he hits the ball hard, it's because he squares it up and the pitcher's velocity is doing the work.
Arraez's approach is unique among today's hitting stars, but it used to be a common way to approach hitting for non-sluggers. Some were more proficient at it than others, but watching Arraez very much evokes memories of Boggs, Carew and Ichiro Suzuki, just to name a few legends. Yet it's kind of a miracle Arraez even exists, given the development strategies that dominate professional baseball in the 21st century.
Is it replicable? It is because, as noted, Arraez isn't the first player to excel based on elite bat control. At the same time, don't expect to see a wave of Arraezes in the future. In many ways, he is the exception that proves the new rule. Despite his NL-best average and active streak of 170 whiff-free plate appearances, he's currently at 1.1 bWAR over 137 games.
Yordan Alvarez (.311, or .332 in 1979)
How is he doing it? No bad swings.
From the time Alvarez reached the majors, he's been the complete package as a hitter. He hits for average (.299 career mark). He's nearing the end of his fourth straight 30-homer season. His annually falling strikeout rate has cratered to 14.8% this season. As a lefty swinger, Alvarez has a career OPS against righties of .977; against southpaws it's .967. His OPS at hitter-friendly Minute Maid Park is .924; on the road it's 1.027.
As with Arraez, the new bat tracking metrics deepen our understanding of what makes Alvarez so special. He ranks seventh in average bat speed, so he's not getting cheated when he takes a whack. But the bat tracking department at Statcast also tracks "swords," which are those feeble swings a hitter takes when he's completely fooled by a pitch but can't hold back.
The league leaders in swords are both Angels -- Zach Neto and Logan O'Hoppe -- with 35. (Better look into that, Halos.) Kyle Schwarber, who is enjoying a career season for the Phillies, has 34. Witt has 16, Judge has 13 and Guerrero has eight.
Alvarez? He has zero.
Is it replicable? Alvarez is 197 batting runs better than average for his career, according to that subcategory of bWAR. His overall runs above average is 143, as he's negative in all the other factors. All of his value comes from what he does with the stick. He's a big dude -- 6-foot-5, 237 pounds -- and it's not hard to envision someone with his power selling out on every swing.
Alvarez doesn't do that. If hitting is going to be the sum of his contribution, he's going to do it better than anybody. In this way he reflects the all-around skills at the plate of Hall of Fame DH David Ortiz, probably Alvarez's closest historical antecedent. So players like this do come around and will come around again. But they are so, so rare.
The others
While the five hitters above seem like good bets at this point to finish above .300, there is a small group either just above or just below the .300 mark who are worth monitoring.
Mookie Betts (.303, or .324 in 1979): Betts (5-foot-9, 180 pounds) matches an older version of the athleticism of Witt with the power of a much bigger player. Like Witt, he's good at everything. Betts has hit as high as .346 in a season (2018) but seemed to tilt more toward power after arriving in L.A. Over the past two seasons, Betts has found a new balance and is poised to challenge the .300 barrier annually. He is right on the cutoff for qualifying in 2024, but should be safe barring another injury.
Marcell Ozuna (.303, or .324 in 1979): Ozuna is another high-exit-velo hitter with less discipline than those above him. His average has been propped up this year by a BABIP spike, so it's hard to say if he can stay over .300. Either way, he's had a great season.
Jose Altuve (.302, or .323 in 1979): One of baseball's two career .300 hitters, Altuve, like Judge, is one of a kind. A three-time batting champ who once hit .331 over a five-year stretch, more than anything Altuve has proved adaptable as his circumstances and skills have changed. Back to his .300 hitting ways, this is why Altuve is headed for Cooperstown.
Yainer Diaz (.301, or .322 in 1979): Diaz, a .300-hitting catcher, is only in his second full season. A wild swinger, Diaz's tendency to chase will make hitting .300 annually a challenge. But his bat-on-ball skills are terrific and when he makes contact with the ball, he hits it hard.
Brent Rooker (.298, or .319 in 1979): There are always going to be mashers who threaten .300 in a given season, and Rooker is one of those in 2024. There's no questioning his pop, as he's in the 90th percentile or better in exit velocity, barrels and hard-hit rate. But he was a career .230 hitter entering this season, and his sudden flirtation with .300 is entirely due to an out-of-nowhere .369 BABIP.
Trea Turner (.298, or .319 in 1979): Probably Witt's closest stylistic relative. Turner was a career .303 hitter through age 28. He's dropped mildly in the three seasons since then, as higher launch angles have made him more of a fly ball hitter. Always an aggressive swinger, Turner combines above-average power, especially for a shortstop, with plus contact skills and top-end speed once he gets moving.