Unless Cal Raleigh is somehow able to go 8-8 over the Seattle Mariners’ final two games of the 2025 MLB regular season, he is in danger of setting a new record low.
As things stand, Raleigh and New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge are, by unanimous consensus, the only two Most Valuable Player award candidates in the American League. (No offense, Jose Ramirez.) Judge’s candidacy, however, hinges on the fact that as an all-around hitter who also happens to be so large as to make his slap hits travel 400 feet, he is a dominant force at the plate both through his power and his placement.
Raleigh, the Big Dumper, is by contrast all about power. Certainly, he has a ton of power, hitting 60 home runs so far this season for the ninth-highest single season total in MLB history (and the third-highest by someone not named Bonds, McGwire or Sosa during the anomalous years of 1999-2001). As opposed to Judge, though, that power comes at the expense of batting average. And if Raleigh wins the MVP award, he will do so with the lowest batting average ever.
Raleigh’s Batting Average; A Comparison
According to the numbers of Baseball Reference, the only players to have ever won MVP in either league to have hit for less than the .248 batting average that Raleigh currently sports in 2025 are all pitchers, whose trips to the plate were ancillary to their work on the mound. Among hitters, the only three MVP winners to ever hit below a .270 batting average were Shohei Ohtani, Roger Maris, and Marty Marion.
In 2021, Ohtani won MVP with a hitting line of .257/.372/.592, but it was a season in which he also stole 26 bags and threw to a 3.13 ERA across 26 starts. Marion’s win in 1944 came with only a .267 batting average with six home runs and 63 RBI, winning mostly on account of his defense and the 1940s equivalent of a vibe.
The most comparable case to Raleigh’s would Maris’s MVP award season in 1961, which came with 61 home runs breaking Babe Ruth’s long-standing single-season record. But even then, Maris’ win came on a .269 batting average that still stands more than 20 points higher than the Dumper’s.
If victorious over Judge, then, Raleigh will stand along as the Low Batting Average MVP. But were it to happen, it also does not matter.
The New Baseball Orthodoxy
In modern day baseball, power has become more dominant, and as a direct (and deliberate) result, batting averages across the league are lower than in past eras. In the advent of the sabermetrics revolution, measures such as on-base plus slugging (OPS) and slugging percentage carry greater weight in both advanced metrics and narrative value. Sluggers who can combine home runs, walks, and extra-base hits have become more highly prized, even if their batting average is less impressive.
At the same time, pitchers have more weapons today. Deeper bullpens, higher velocities, far higher strikeout rates, stronger analytics on pitch sequencing, spin rates and more specialization in relief roles have all made it harder to put balls in play, especially for those with powerful swings. All of that has made it harder for hitters to maintain high averages, especially across large sample sizes.
In Raleigh’s case, the power output more than compensates for the average. He has smashed a historically large number of home runs (including setting new marks for both catcher and a switch-hitter) and driven in runs at an elite level. Even though his batting average is low, his .248 is nothing anomalous in a modern day MLB where the league average is .246, in an area with the lowest averages for 60 years.
Nothing about his batting average, then, should immediately disqualify him from the MVP award. Unless, that is, you want Judge to win.
