JUST NOW: 6 mysterious players that has hit 300 this year…

Six mystery gamers have reached 300 this year

JUST NOW: 6 mysterious players that has hit 300 this year… Do you know how many qualified players batted .300 or better last year? The answer is seven. There were nine in 2023, 11 in ‘22 and 14 in ‘21. That is to say: The .300 batting average hitter — long the benchmark for baseball excellence, really for more than a century — is slowly becoming more and more of a rarity. There are obvious reasons for this, starting with the fact that pitching is tougher than ever. Then there’s the analytical revolution, which understands, in a way maybe GMs in the 1980s didn’t, that while batting average is important, there are many other statistics that more precisely capture a player’s offensive contributions. JUST NOW:

Nonetheless, the appeal of a.300 hitter is strong and visible. It’s simply a basic baseball round number.

We’re obviously early in the season, so we shouldn’t read too much into the fact that 32 qualifying players entered Tuesday’s games hitting.300 or higher. There are some large, bold averages that everyone is enthusiastic about, even though we know they will eventually fall. What’s fascinating is how these players approached reaching these numbers in such different ways. There is no single way to get there.

Here’s a closer look at six of the most intriguing players who began Tuesday at .325 or higher, players using different methods to take aim at an increasingly rare feat.

Oh, yes: this guy. Judge, as usual, is crushing the ball, but his bat-to-ball contact has contributed to his rise from “home run hitter” to “Barry Bonds-ian dominance.” His strikeout rate (21.2 percent) is the lowest of his career and somewhat below the MLB average.

That means Judge is getting the best of everything: He has seven home runs and leads the Majors in hits (33), OBP (.490), OPS (1.188), and RBIs (25). You can’t toss Judge anything right now. After setting the single-season home run record in 2001, Bonds won the batting title again in the next three seasons. That is not above Judge’s capabilities.

Throughout most of last season, there was considerable suspicion that Goldschmidt’s career was coming to an end. Goldschmidt was batting under.200 as late as May 13, 2024, and while he improved slightly after that, his final average (.245) was a career low.

Goldschmidt’s improved second half (.271/.319/.480) led to a one-year contract with the Yankees, where he has performed differently from his previous MVP form. The 37-year-old has only one home run this season, and his exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and barrel rate are all down from 2024. He only has five doubles, indicating that he has truly transformed into a singles hitter; it’s unusual to see Goldschmidt hit like Tony Gwynn. (Actually, Gwynn had a lot more home runs.)

Goldschmidt has compensated for the power shortfall with significantly greater contact and fewer strikeouts and ground balls. So far, he has achieved his career-highest average by 50 points.

Even if the average falls somewhat, the Yankees are getting plenty of value for their investment.

Wilson, the No. 6 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, appeared in 28 games with the A’s last year, just a year after the club drafted him out of Grand Canyon University. This was part of the organization’s recent trend of aggressive promotions. (Just ask Nick Kurtz, the fourth overall pick in the 2024 draft.)

Wilson did not fare well last year: he was hurt in his MLB debut, missing more than a month and ending up hitting. 250 with no home runs. The A’s have finally gotten the Wilson they were looking for in 2025, as the 23-year-old is not only batting over.350 but also slugging. 500 and eight extra-base hits.

Wilson has always been a high-average hitter, batting.401 in 79 Minor League games. He’s not a great power hitter, and he has yet to draw a walk this season, but he immediately resembles your favorite player from 1988.

Trevor Story, SS, Red Sox

Story has had so many injuries during his career, especially since moving to Boston, that Red Sox manager Alex Cora feels justified in giving him days off whenever possible. Story had a successful week, since he had Sunday off before the Patriots’ Day game on Monday. He went 3-for-4.

Seeing Story like this — that is, “healthy” — serves as a reminder of what he is capable of, and it’s even more fascinating to see him do it at Fenway Park, which has long seemed like a natural fit for his fly ball-oriented swing. with his first ten games with Boston this season, he batted.381 and slugged.619.

“There’s that feeling of normalcy, of being settled in,” Story told me this past week, “and not trying to battle for my health every single day.”

Steven Kwan, LF, Guardians
BA: .333 (11th in MLB)

It remains to be seen whether he can stay healthy all year, as he has never batted over.300. (Interestingly, his career high as a Rockie was.294.) Even though Story no longer considers Coors Field home, he may never be in a better circumstance than he is now.

Kwan has never hit.300 in a big league season, though he came close. He hit.298 as a rookie in 2022 and.292 last year, despite being at a whopping.398 through June 16. However, his batted just.230 in 79 games the rest of the way, including.195 in September/October. It’s possible he’ll collapse like that again this year, but it seems unlikely. Kwan has combined his elite.

Don’t be surprised if Kwan passes the career-high 14 homers he hit last year, too. He already has four, despite bat speeds and exit velocities that rank at the bottom of the league. It’s an unusual profile these days, but it works for Kwan. The trick now may be what he was unable to do last year: stay healthy.

Jung Hoo Lee, CF, Giants

When the Giants brought in the former KBO MVP before last season, they thought they were getting a singles hitter who could steal bases and cause havoc on the basepaths. They instead got a guy who was caught three times in five steal attempts, hit only .262 and ended up sustaining a season-ending shoulder injury after just 37 games. It wasn’t an ideal transition to the Majors.

That made most observers forget about Lee, which is why his emergence for one of the most surprising teams in baseball has been so exciting. The most fun part of Lee’s game so far is that he’s not just hitting for average, he’s hitting for power, too. He has three homers, two triples and an MLB-leading 10 doubles, leading to a .600 slugging percentage. Oh, and he has already stolen more bases (three) than he did all last year.

Lee isn’t being used as a table-setter, either, with Giants manager Bob Melvin typically batting him third in the order rather than leadoff. Speed, contact and more pop than people thought — no wonder this guy won an MVP. This might stick, too: He once hit .360 for a full season in Korea.