Highest single season MLB batting averages since 1990

We’ll take a look at the players who have posted the highest single season batting averages since 1990. All statistics are sourced from Baseball Reference.

Fans will be hard pressed to come up with a player who had better hand-eye coordination than Gwynn. The San Diego Padres outfielder spoke softly, but did a lot of damage with the stick. Bleacher Report called him the most underrated hitter of all-time.

He also had tremendous vision at the plate, which allowed him to swing at pitches that were primarily in the strike zone. Gwynn hit .394 in 1994, a strike-shortened season, and we'll never know whether he could have eclipsed .400 had the campaign continued.

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Walker’s hitting prowess in 1999 was impressive any way you slice it, but it might be more remarkable considering where it took place. Coors Field was and still is a home run haven, which increases the temptation for Colorado Rockies hitters to pull everything over the fence.

Walker hit his share of bombs, but also made sure to collect base hits with runners in scoring position. Mile High Sports attempted to put Walker's greatness into perspective by sharing that his OPS metrics with the Rockies landed at a remarkable 1.044.

As is becoming apparent, Gwynn was one of the hardest outs to get in all of baseball. He hit .372 in 1997, but truthfully, almost any of his seasons could have been picked for a list like this. He hit over .300 in every single one of his 20 major league seasons, except for his rookie campaign. He played with the Padres until he was 41 years old.

In the late 1990s, there were three shortstops that fans couldn’t stop talking about. Garciaparra was one of them, in addition to the more popular Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. The Los Angeles Times compared and contrasted the skills of all three back in the day.

The Boston Red Sox infielder had a unique routine at the plate, but it worked well for him. Garciaparra hit .372 in the 2000 season.

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Helton also had his career high batting average of .372 during the 2000 season, and is another Rockies batter that understood situational hitting.

The sweet-swinging first baseman was a mainstay in Colorado for 17 years, finishing with a career average of .316. He made five All-Star appearances, and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in January 2024.

It seemed unlikely that Ichiro would be able to maintain his amazing production in MLB after coming over from Japan, but he proved that he could hit anywhere.

He won Rookie Of The Year and MVP in his first MLB season in 2001, which is a phenomenal feat. Ichiro hit .372 in 2004, and set the record for most hits in a season with 262. The Seattle Times reminisced about Ichiro's best moments with the Mariners.

There were a lot of great power hitters in the 1990s, and Galarraga often gets overlooked in that conversation. He didn’t consistently hit for average like some other players on this list, but put the bat on the ball consistently well for a few years. Another Rockies player makes our cut, as Galarraga hit .370 for the club in 1993.

Teams were forced to stop pitching to Bonds in the early 2000s because of how dangerous he was. He hit .370 in the 2002 season, but was also walked 198 times.

This is an interesting sidenote because Bonds had to maintain his level of focus even as pitchers tried to give him nothing to hit. USA Today remembered the time Bonds was actually walked with the bases loaded.

Miami Marlins second baseman Luis Arraez hit .356 during the 2023 MLB season, and may have the best chance of breaking into the stratosphere of averages posted by players of another generation. MLB's website examined how Arraez has become an elite hitter without supreme exit velocity statistics.

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