The Smartest Hitters In Baseball History 

Gwynn was the last player to come close to batting .400 not Brett. Gwynn hit .394 in 1994.

@@jeffphillips1832 he said full 1994 was strike shortened

@@Harapan162 if you compare the number of at bats they are pretty close.

@@jeffphillips1832 i know but thats his reasoning

Stan "The Man" Musial also had more doubles than strikeouts. . .But Stan seems very forgotten these days.

@@BluesImprov Stan played at a time with considerably lower strikeouts, maybe fifty percent of today. Gwynn played in the 1980s and 1990s when strikeouts were only about 15 or 20 percent lower.

@@BluesImprovgreat player but different Era

So did; Bill Buckner Joe Sewell Nellie Fox Frankie Frisch Joe DiMaggio and gobs of other players Shoot, Sweet Willie Keeler, my man had more triples than strikeouts

Agreed. He was just super special. One of the coolest and beloved player of our time.

Yes, he possessed about as much raw talent as any baseball player I have ever seen. His son has the same gifts.

I was going to comment the same thing his average and eye arnt anywhere close to these guys but vlad could turn a curve ball in the dirt and hit it out of the park and that in itself to me is more impressive then these hitters he listed

@@spoonsz Vlad’s avg which is .318, is higher than Bonds, Brett, Ichiro and Votto.

@@riltalk4055 does not surprise me I only remember him from his A's days but when I was a kid I absolutely loved watching him bat actually used his batting stance in real life as a kid 😂

@@spoonsz As an Orioles fan his time on the Orioles cemented him as my favorite player ever.

Damn, you have way more pop than me, I am 14 now batting .700 with only one home run, but it was on an extremely tiny field, I don’t ever strikeout, it would be nice to have as much pop as you had.

Love your story!!! Thank you for sharing. I never worked that much on a tee... But I tried to get my inside, central, and out side swings in on soft toss. I'm the reason you see signage of "do not hit balls against fence. We dented the fence so badly that in an attempt to reverse the damage we hit from the other side of the fence. Hitting soft toss into a convex chain link fence added too much extra ball shagging to really get a good work out in

@@jameskasselman8503 my Dad came up with a fix. He used a drill press and drilled a hole through a baseball and tied a piece of nylon rope to the ball and wrapped it around the neck of the batting T.

@@aidenbrulotte1723 ever hear, they don't make them like they used too? Easton achieved perfection with the 34/31 Black Magic bat. They stopped making them in the early to mid 90's. The other part of the story I left out was I discovered weight lifting over that summer as well.

If I read this bullshit story one more time on social media, I'm going hunting.

And Boggs.

My dad bought one of those instructional videos that Jr made when he started coaching my team in junior high. He also bought the Instructo Swing product from the video that Jr designed (or just used? I can't remember) to teach that nice simple swing. I thought it was going to be a waste of money like one of those as seen on TV kind of things, but I have never encountered anything else that was as effective in doing what it was designed to do. Every player on our team improved their batting average by at least 50 points that season. I don't know whether Jr studied pitchers like some of these other guys, but he had swing efficiency figured out like no one before or since.

@@rockstarperformance I remember those! I watched the hell out of them, but never really managed to put it into efficacious usage. I was really young, and just was enamored with watching Jr. talk baseball. I remember his bits on having your knuckles lined up, taking a small stride, but the rest was a bit over my head as a 7 year old.

Better swing than Ted Williams? Both were pretty damn good and had a beautiful swing

@@andrewsmith3257 Ted very literally wrote the book on swing mechanics, so I know that my take is a little controversial, but when I watch them, it still looks to me like Williams is trying to hit the ball hard. Jr. just looks like he's taking warm-up cuts in BP, and then it sails 500+ feet.

One of my favorite athletes. One to emulate. Never forget that smile and laugh. A remarkable man.

If he had stayed on track, he would have gotten 3000 hits and 500 homers... and probably played 2 or 3 more seasons

Im not so certain.

Bill James said that Bonds was the best player of the 1990s, and that the gap between #2 and #10 was smaller than the one between Bonds and the #2 player. And he was skinny through the ‘90s.

@@krolik1157Except I am not sure he was number one by a mile either.

@@ethanweeter2732 well that changes everything

As a newer, casual fan who watched some late 2000s Indians, I think Miggy is probably misremembered as an overweight 1B/DH type power hitter in the mold of Fielder Jr and others around that era. Having taken an interest in stats I was surprised to see that Miggy was a god-tier hitter for almost 20 seasons with a consistently elite BA and OBP while having modest HR rates. He seems hugely underrated and almost forgotten in a thinly-vieled attempt to hype current stars that value walks over hits. I was very surprised the first time I saw his bbref page and how little he's talked about in relation to the best players of the 2000s and 2010s. I'm sure playing for the Tigers didn't help along with the WAR penalty for his position(s).

@@Demoralized88Uhh… how is averaging over 33 home runs a season for his first THIRTEEN SEASONS considered modest in any way whatsoever?

@@2nerdsinhell Because it was modest to what he could've hit if he wanted to? He could've easily hit 50HR/season but wisely didn't want to sacrifice his BA and OBP. Modest does not mean bad and is not necessarilly negative. 33HR/yr is obviously good, but he wasn't that archetype like a Pujols.

Miggy is certainly exceptional but doesn't belong here

@@tokivikerness8863oh Christ, I’d take prime miggy over a prime votto any day.

All time hits leader, I agree 💯

Fuckin unbelievable , rose not even an honorable mention

Great hitter, but not really in the same league as far as hitting excellence compared to Gwynn or Williams.

I mean... the AL batting title is named for Rod Carew the way that the national league title is named for Tony Gwynn. He absolutely needs some attention.

Carew being a singles hitter hurts his fame a bit. We like the long ball. Plus, he played for a secondary market team.

I'd like to add Nomar to that list. Ted williams himself called Nomar his heir apparent. It sucks to think about what could've been and what Should've been with Nomar.

And Ty Cobb for the old timers

Did you see Votto’s recent interview on High Heat?

Honestly, I’d be psyched if we just see another .400 hitter and Arraez seems to be the best option.

Love Arraez - have since he broke with the Twins

My favorite legends. Quietly good and like Gwynn widely adored and loved. Stan's stats are absolutely jaw dropping.

Probably why he had high OBP and few HRs though, but if he was laying off bad pitches than that is the sign of a great hitter.

Big time

Walk softly & carry a big stick. Got A Em Sumerr

Right on. Frank Thomas and Pete rose should definitely be featured. It’s amazing to think that Frank played so much of his career injured and still put up such amazing numbers. Almost no one compares to Frank at his prime.

Ichiro was always amazing and weird to watch. His swing was almost lazy looking the way he would just wave the bat over the plate only for the ball to find a gap somewhere lol If this were a video game I'd say he was using an aimbot lol

They were quite chummy too. I live that quote by Maddux about Gwynn. Mad respect

Yes, but we don’t count the Japanese hits in America.

You can't? Is MLB not a higher level?

Jackie Robinson is underrated for a similar reason-he was 28 when he debuted and only started playing pro ball two years earlier.

But no film. Another reason why this not The Smartest Video about Hitters.

Joe Sewell was the greatest contact hitter ever

Hornsby's vison was reputed to be extraordinary. He refused to read the newspaper before a game to "save" his eyesight for the game.

@@PinballBob1 Not that saved him from declining hard and fast.

Yeah, but that's very rare in the modern era along with 20+ year careers. Doesn't really matter though when nobody takes Rose's career seriously anymore.

Super special player.

I agree. Manny was a great student of hitting. Check him out on RU-vid. Literally a how to in.hitting mechanics. One of the sw÷test swing in our time. But his mechanics were so consistently good. Dude could rake to all fields. Really fun to watch in the batters box

a good beer too......

Well he's certainly highly respected by Canadians and the Cincinnati fans love him too... theres no doubt hes been underrated and even hated through plenty of his career, but I feel thats changed a bit over the last few years... like hes came out of his shell and it made him way more likable by baseball fans league wide, i mean, hes even had a few viral video moments with fans at this point, that i think really changed peoples general perception of him. and just the fact that he keeps on going and going, despite his personal ups and downs and the game changing around him, hes managed to remain relevant in todays game. which is always admirable and respected among true ball fans. So yeah to a casual baseball fan hes still not nearly as recognizable of a name as someone like Judge, but i mean neither is Trout... If Votto or Trout played in different markets theyd for sure be way bigger names without a doubt, but with that said, among true baseball fans the name Votto is for sure respected these days.

@@TysonHook-22- man you would be shocked by how many people in Cincinnati don't like him and act like his contract was a terrible mistake. The reason these people aren't very apparent online is because they're mostly 45+ year olds. They seem to think he has no shot at the HOF, they say he was overpaid (which is hilarious when you look at the list of players who are paid about the same or more since he signed his contract). They've always said he "takes too many walks." I've never seen any other player get so much criticism for getting on base. I love the Reds and Cincinnati but there are some very ignorant fans here

@@TysonHook-22- however I do very much appreciate the respect, especially from a Cardinals fan. I feel like the animosity has greatly cooled down over the past decade. Probably helps that Molina and Phillips are no longer on both teams lol.

Apparently not frigging enough. You leave out a hitter who had well over 4000 hits.sorry article

Ted Williams is the greatest hitter ever (along with Ruth and we'll never know about Bonds). Who's comparing Tony to Ted?

Brett Butler was the best drag bunter I've ever seen.

I've never heard great and Brett Butler mentioned in the same sentence. Good player, not great.

@@mikelmart best drag bunter I've ever seen. I didn't say he was great but he was the spark plug that got on base for the Giants back in '89. The only guy on this list who did it better was Ichiro. I'm not a Giants fan either so I'm not fan girling just stating what I saw with my own eyes.

@@mikebrase5161 Good player, long career. The type of player every team needed if they wanted to be successful.

Hn Kruk said, as soon as her Met T. Gwynn it was ridiculous how much better he was than everyone else. These guys were great frie,friends, and were roommates. Tony is one of the most respected snd widely lived players of our time. He was soooo good and just so fucking cool.

Boggs was average?

@@Polack-ml9fh When not at Fenway? Yes, though I said solid to average with solid being a solid tick above average. His numbers elsewhere are what they are. Check the Baseball Reference if you disbelieve.

Boggs batted over .300 4xs for the Yankees. His career batting average was .328 and his career Obp was .415!!!!

He was Amazing!

It really sucks how bad his knees got. Dude went from stealing 20 bases some years to being the slowest player in baseball within a few years.

@@warlordofbritannia I don't think he ever stole 20, though he did steal more than you'd expect for a guy his size who, even when young, wasn't particularly fast. He was an intelligent base runner who picked his spots and took advantage when the pitcher wasn't paying attention. He was also a very good fielding first baseman for a number of years before his mobility declined.

career .300 DESPITE terrible years way past him prime that hurt his avgs. His batting stats make the bigger 'stars' look terrible. His WAR would be nuts if 1B wasn't so ridiculously penalized.

Mauer was so fun to watch. He would just take pitch after pitch so he and the team could see more arm angles, more movement on breaking pitches, more differences between each pitch. He'd look at where each fielder was and he was so good at taking what the pitcher was giving him, unafraid to put a ball on the ground or go the opposite way, things so many batters seemed reluctant to do. It really is too bad about the injuries. He changed what it was even possible to expect from the position that he played.

Ricky is somehow seemingly forgotten in modern times or mislabeled as only a base stealer

Musial is always forgotten by young guys and these lists.

No had superhero vision. Bonds too. Plus the work they put in and honing their craft. Soooo hard to strike Tony out. It is kinda insane.

Ed

lefties also have a very natural good swing

Some currently known right handed sluggers are Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton, Vladdy Jr, Bo-Bichette, Pete Alonso, Mookie Betts, Trea Turner, Acuna Jr, Nick Castellanos, Julio Rodriguez, Tatis Jr, Yandy Diaz. But there is also many great left handed hitters in todays game of course and as brycemartin69 already alluded to, many believe lefties have the most natural and beautiful swings in baseball... but that said, some of those names I mentioned above have vary beautiful swing mechanics too. With the majority of pitchers being right handed and the mechanics of pitching... its no secret that lefty hitters have a natural plate advantage... "Left-handed hitters get the natural advantage of batting in their favored matchup more often. This should skew their stats higher than right-handed who are batting against their platoon advantage." "Statistically, left handed batters have a batting average that is 7 points higher than right handed batters - .270 for lefties, .263 for righties." Whats even more amazing is the great switch hitters of the game like Pete Rose and Micky Mantle, two names that easily couldve been on this list. Pete Rose has for sure talked about the art of hitting/switch hitting over the years and has specifically mentioned how his ability to switch hit was a big advantage to him, since its like having a secret weapon to pull out against pitchers. He also was the type of guy that would switch back and fourth just to mess with pitchers heads.

Was do to.longevity. phenomenal snd versatile player, but his approach at the plate is not equal to Tony or Ted.

I'm from Chula Vista. Ted went to Hoover High, I believe, which is in San Diego.

@@willzavala6379 Yep

With all due respect for Pete Rose. The biggest factor in he being the hit leader, was the fact that he played 27 seasons.

Yes he is so underrated