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. 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. He won a record 11 batting titles in the American League from 1907âÂÂ1909, 1911âÂÂ1915, and 1917âÂÂ1919. Oscar Charleston is third with a career batting average of .363. Charleston and Gibson are the only players to have won consecutive Triple Crowns, having done so in 1924 and 1925 and 1936 and 1937, respectively.
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. 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. 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.
As of March 27, 2026, no active player appears in the list below; the active player ranking highest is Jose Altuve, 147th with a .303 career batting average.
Different sources of baseball records present somewhat differing lists of career batting average leaders, primarily due to differences in minimums needed to qualify (number of games played or plate appearances), or differences in early baseball records. Baseball Reference includes the Negro League teams considered major leagues by Major League Baseball, while such players do not appear in the lists presented by Baseball Almanac or ESPN. The criteria used by Baseball ReferenceâÂÂa minimum of 3,000 plate appearancesâÂÂresults in Josh Gibson being omitted. In sources where Gibson is omitted, Ty Cobb leads this category.
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).