Fewer players to bat .300?

A few days ago, I listened to a podcast show and the host indicated that a player was hitting .300, previously, a batter with a batting average of .300 was called a good hitter. However, it seems that batting average has become less important nowadays.

Additionally, it has become rare to see players with a batting average of .300 or higher.

Looking back at the 2000 season, Todd Helton and Nomar Garciaparra each finished the season with a batting average of .372. Additionally, 53 players in the majors posted a batting average of .300 or higher in 2000. Thus, basically, you can find a player with a .300+ BA in each team, on average.

In 2001, Ichiro Suzuki finished the season with a .350 batting average and in the National League, Hall of Famer Larry Walker had a batting average of .350 as well. Meanwhile, Mike Piazza and Aramis Ramirez each owned a .300 BA in 2001. In that season, 46 players each posted a batting average of .300 or above. However, in 2002, the number dropped significantly. There were 35 players who finished the season with a batting average of .300 or higher. Barry Bonds led the majors with a .370 BA in 2002. The next season, 40 players each had a batting average of .300 or above. Hence, the number went up a little bit. However, from 2004 to 2006, the number didn’t reach 40. In 2007, Magglio Ordonez finished the season with a .363 BA and Ichiro Suzuki is the other player with a batting average over .350. In this season, 40 players posted a batting average of .300 or higher. The next season, 34 players had at least .300 batting average. In 2009, the number increased to 42. Joe Mauer finished the season with a .365 BA and Ichiro Suzuki owned a .352 BA. Nonetheless, in 2010, only 23 players had a batting average of .300 or higher. The number hadn’t changed much from 2011 to 2013. However, in 2014, the number declined to 17. The number bounced back to 20 in 2015. And, there were 25 players with at least .300 BA in 2016 and 2017 each. But, in 2018 and 2019, the number dropped again. There were fewer than 20 hitters who finished the season with at least .300 BA. However, in the shortened 2020 season, we saw the number of players with a batting average of .300 or higher reach 23. Nevertheless, last year, only 14 players had a batting average of .300 or higher. As we can easily see, over the last 22 years, it has become rare to see players who hit .300 in a single season. Nowadays, you might not be able to see a player in your favorite team with a .300 BA. To date, there are 20 batters with a .300 batting average or higher this season. There are fewer than 100 games remaining for each team. It will be quite interesting to see whether this number will go up or go down. But, it’s certain that batting average is probably not as important as it used to be.