Baseball Batting Average

Batting average measures how often a hitter gets a hit when given an official at-bat. It works by comparing successful outcomes (hits) to total opportunities that count as at-bats, so a larger fraction means the batter reaches base by hit more often. Because it is a ratio, batting average lets you compare players fairly even if they have different numbers of plate appearances.

Use this formula in baseball or softball statistics when you want a simple measure of a batter’s hitting success. It is especially useful for comparing players, tracking performance over a season, or summarizing a hitter’s consistency.

• Using plate appearances instead of official at-bats
• Forgetting that batting average is written as a decimal, not a percentage
• Dividing hits by total games played instead of at-bats