List of Major League Baseball career batting average leaders
Last updated
Josh Gibson has the highest career batting average (.371) in major-league history.
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 history.[1][a] He batted .371 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 recorded a batting average of under .316 in any qualifying season. Ty Cobb is second all-time with a career batting average of .367.[1] 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 .363.[1] He is the only player to have won consecutive Triple Crowns, having done so in 1924 and 1925.
Different sources of baseball records present somewhat differing lists of career batting average leaders.[1][2][3][4][c] 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.[5] The below table presents the 100 players with the highest qualified batting averages for their major-league careers, as published on MLB.com. A player must have a minimum of 5,000 at-bats to qualify for the list.[6] For Negro League players, the minimum is set at 1,800 at-bats, or 5,000 at-bats combining their Negro league, National League, and American League statistics.[6]
As of June 25, 2025, no active player appears in the below list; the active player ranking highest is Jose Altuve, 160th with a .3044 career batting average.
Baseball-Reference, Baseball Almanac, ESPN, and Major League Baseball rankings
Different sources of baseball records present somewhat differing lists of career batting average leaders. There is consensus that Ty Cobb leads this category.[d] Further rankings vary by source, primarily due to differences in minimums needed to qualify (number of games played or plate appearances), or differences in early baseball records. Baseball-Reference.com includes the Negro League teams considered major leagues by Major League Baseball.[7] The below table presents the top ten lists as they appear in four well-known sources, with the rankings and degree of precision (decimal places) as provided in the source. The main article linked above is sourced from Baseball-Reference.com, which is also presented here. None of the players listed below are still living; each is an inductee of the Baseball Hall of Fame, except for Lefty O'Doul, Pete Browning, and Shoeless Joe Jackson (who was ineligible due to his alleged role in the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 until his eligibility was reinstated in 2025 [8]).
↑ The list presented includes players and statistics from defunct leagues considered "major" by Major League Baseball, not only the National League and American League.
↑ A player is considered inactive if he has announced his retirement or has not played professionally for a full season.
↑ For example, Baseball Reference requires a player to have had at least 3000 plate appearances in their major-league career to qualify,[2] while Baseball Almanac requires 1,000 career games played and 1,000 career at-bats;[3] both exclude Josh Gibson, who had 2526 plate appearances in 602 games.
↑ As of May 2024, with MLB formally recognizing Negro league baseball statistics, Josh Gibson has the highest career batting average—updates to the cited sources are expected.
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