Educating Twitter: Overrating Batting Average

There’s no reason why a .270 hitter should be in the Hall of Fame.

That’s not my opinion, but it is the view of a guy who goes by the handle Big Daddy on the Twitterverse. He said this in a reply to a post about the career accomplishments and Hall of Fame cases of Jorge Posada, a career .273 hitter, and Salvador Perez, a career .268 hitter.

He never elaborated or followed up when many people took issue with this blanket statement, so we’re just left with it as-is. We can assume he didn’t mean the precise number “.270” since neither Posada nor Perez have that exact career batting average, but that leaves us in an even more nebulous position. Does Big Daddy include .275 hitters in that group, or even .279 hitters, or does he mathematically round them up to .280 hitters? And would .280 hitters be okay to elect? We don’t know because he ghosted us without reply. How unsatisfying.

Before delving into the merit, or lack thereof, to Big Daddy’s position, I though I should first go check on the number of current Hall of Fame members who did, in fact, bat .270 or worse during their careers. For this purpose, I stuck with the exact number of .270 since Big Daddy hadn’t clarified his position. And I found an answer.

36%.

No, seriously. More than one out of every three members of the Hall of Fame hit .270 or lower during their careers.