Being an MLB purist, many different kinds of hitters have piqued my interest through the years. Whether I am watching a current player or researching a player that played before my time, there are always a few that stand out for me.
When compiling my list of my favorite MLB hitters, I felt like it was important to touch on all eras. The game of baseball has changed a lot over time.
In my view, it’s not necessarily about who hit the most home runs or who had the highest average. I have always felt that the greatest teams of all time had a combination of both power hitters and players that hit for average.
Even though the saying is “Chicks dig the long ball,” it is sometimes the guy that works a walk after going down no balls and two strikes that ends up being the difference in the final score.
So, below are my eight favorite baseball hitters from across all eras of the MLB.
I could make a top 100, but to save boring you to death, I have cut it down to who I consider are the players that changed hitting in the MLB during their playing years.
These hitters had to be game-planned for. Many of these players set the pace for coveted MLB hitting records, and some still hold many of the top hitting records today.
The Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat, or just plain Babe – whatever you want to call him, he was one of my favorites.
If you are a baseball fan, you have been told a Babe Ruth story. Whether it was when he pointed his bat out to center field to call his shot and then hit a home run or the curse of the Bambino, we have all heard a Babe Ruth story.
The man started out as a pitcher and then went on to only hit 714 home runs and have a career batting average of .342. Just to give you an idea of how dominant a hitter Babe was, he hit 54 home runs in 1920. The amazing part about that is that he single-handedly hit more home runs than every other team in the American League.
Think about that for a second. One man hit more home runs in one season than entire teams.
Oh, you thought that’s all. How about how he did it again in 1927 when he hit 60 home runs? Two different seasons, Babe hit more home runs by himself than all other teams with 15 hitters on their rosters.
In the end, Babe Ruth was a winner. He finished his career with seven World Series titles, but his hitting statistics were just as impressive. Some of Babe Ruth’s final numbers were 714 home runs, 2,214 runs batted in, and 2,873 hits.
You can’t quite have a list of favorite hitters and not include Ted Williams. He is arguably the greatest hitter of all time. He was known to approach hitting as a science. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, finishing with a .344 batting average.
The most famous story of Ted Williams is how he hit .406 during a season. The astonishing part about that historic season was that he entered the last games with an average of .39995.
Boston was scheduled to finish their season with a double-header. Williams could have not played in both games, and his batting average would have been rounded up to .400.
Well, that didn’t quite sit well with Teddy, so instead of sitting out, he played both games and went a combined 6 for 8 at the plate, raising his average to .406.
If he was going to be a .400 hitter, he was going to go out there and earn it. That’s something everyone can admire even if you are a diehard New York Yankees fan.
Throw in six batting titles, two Triple Crowns (league leader in home runs, runs batted in, and runs scored in a single season), 19 All Star appearances, and finally two Most Valuable Player awards, it is easy to see why he is one of my favorite hitters of all time.
There can’t be any list that involves hitting that doesn’t include Hammerin’ Hank.
Hank Aaron was the model of consistency. To many, he is still considered the home run champ with 755 home runs.
He had eight seasons of 40 or more home runs but never hit more than 47 home runs in a single season. Hank Aaron was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1982, but his trip getting to that point was not easy.
The fact that Hank Aaron was able to consistently hit year in and year out during the time period is a feat in its own.
Hank was chasing one of the most coveted sports records, the home run champ. The problem for Hank was that he was an African American trying to break the record of one of the most admired players in America at the time, Babe Ruth.
Death threats were a constant for Hank Aaron throughout this time. None of it bothered him, though. He just went about his business and kept hitting his home runs.
When Hank decided to hang up his cleats, the stats he left behind were beyond impressive. He finished with 3,771 hits, 755 home runs, and 2,297 runs batted in.
In a day and age where some of the best baseball hitters today strike out 200 times, one has to admire Hank Aaron’s average strikeouts per season. He averaged 69 strikeouts per season and NEVER struck out more than 100 times in a single season!
If a hitter of this caliber existed today, he would be the biggest Major Leaguer in the world. The number of strikeouts compared to the rest of the league would be such an outlier that he would change the way the game is played today.
Even with the PED controversy, Barry Bonds makes the list of my favorite hitters. He was one of the most feared hitters of all time. To give you an idea of how great he was, let’s go over some career stats.
The man not only was one of the best hitters in the game, but he also won eight Gold Gloves throughout his career, proving he was a two-way player. He finished his career with 762 home runs, 2,935 hits, and an astonishing 2,558 walks.
To just touch on how ridiculous this man was treated by pitchers, let’s dive into some of his stats compared to other hitters throughout MLB history.
First, he was walked 2,558 times, which was 368 more walks than the player with the second-most walks in MLB history, Rickey Henderson.
The most astonishing stat, though, is that he was intentionally walked 688 times! That’s 392 more free passes than Albert Pujols, who is second on the list.
Hell, the man was walked intentionally when the bases were loaded and with two outs! Let me say that again. He was intentionally walked WITH THE BASES LOADED!
That means the opposing team felt it was more beneficial to walk in one run than let Barry have an at bat. If that doesn’t prove the fear pitchers and managers felt when Barry came to the plate, I don’t know what else will.
Not only did Barry Bonds set the records for the most coveted hitting records, but he also finished his career a seven-time MVP, fourteen-time All-Star, and with two batting titles and twelve Silver Slugger awards.
Say what you want about the steroid era, but Barry Bonds was one of the greatest hitters of all time and quite possibly the most feared hitter in MLB history.
Now, when it comes to just pure hitting, this next player might be my favorite. Tony Gwynn was the closest player to a modern-day Ted Williams as it got.
There are levels to hitting. Understanding hitting. Understanding what the pitcher is trying to do and how to counteract that. Tony Gwynn was ahead of everyone in this aspect.
He studied more than any other hitter to play the game. If you watch the game today, players preach about studying film on pitchers and how opponents approach getting them out. With today’s analytics and technology, you can easily see how beneficial it would be to a player.
Tony Gwynn did all this well before the invention of iPads or even the internet as we know it today. He did his studying by popping in VHS tape after VHS tape.
If you can think for a second how long a process like that would take, then you can see how he was always a step ahead of the pitcher when it came to his hitting.
It gets me excited watching a hitter hit the ball where the pitch dictates. Tony Gwynn’s goal at the plate was to take what the pitchers gave him.
If they pitched him outside, he would not do too much and slap that ball to the opposite field for a base hit. If the pitcher threw inside, Tony was ready to turn on it and either hit a home run or a double that hugged the line.
It wasn’t only his approach that makes Tony Gwynn one of my favorite hitters of all time. His stats also proved he was on another level than the rest of the league. So let’s take a look at some of his career stats.
Tony Gwynn ended his career with 3,141 hits, 135 home runs, and a career batting average of .338. In today’s game where a .275 batting average gets you a $200 million contract, it’s amazing what Tony Gwynn was able to accomplish.
Now it’s time to take it to another level with Tony’s hitting.
In the strike-shortened season of 1994, Tony Gwynn batted .394 for the year. He was batting .423 in the second half of that year, which is absurd. He was the only player since Ted William’s season of batting .406 to come anywhere near the iconic .400 batting average.
Another amazing stat of Gwynn’s was that he only struck out three times in a game ONCE! By comparison, Bryce Harper has had 47 games where he struck out three times.
Tony Gwynn also averaged 21.7 strikeouts per season. There were almost 30 players in 2018 that struck out 150 times or more.
Let’s also throw in there that Tony Gwynn batted .300 in a record 19 straight seasons. The only season that Tony didn’t hit .300 was in his rookie year. Currently, no other player has a streak of three or more. That should show you how great of a hitter Tony Gwynn was.
He is one of my favorites because he approached every at bat with a plan. He knew how the pitcher was going to approach getting him out, but he was already a step ahead.
I want a hitter on my team that is willing to slap an outside pitch to the opposite field to keep the inning going. He wouldn’t go up to any at bat trying to hit a home run like most hitters try to do today, produce an out, and end the inning.
Similar to Tony Gwynn, Ichiro Suzuki was born to hit a baseball. He was raised to repeat his swing day in and day out for his entire life. It’s no wonder that he became one of the greatest hitters of all time and one of my favorite hitters.
Ichiro’s career wasn’t like every other MLB player. He didn’t come over to the United States until 2001 after playing nine seasons in the Japan Pacific League. It is safe to say that Ichiro was ready to compete against the best baseball players in the world.
In 2001, not only did Ichiro become the first Japanese position player in Major League Baseball history, but he also leads all of baseball in hits with 242 and stolen bases with 56.
These stats lead him to winning the American League hitting title, the American League Rookie of the Year Award, as well as the American League Most Valuable Player.
Ichiro remains the only player in Major League Baseball history to win all three awards in their first season. It’s safe to say he started his Major League Baseball career with a bang.
He also holds the top two single-season hit totals with 262 hits in 2004 and 242 hits in 2001, his ROOKIE season! Hitting the 200 hit mark in a season was quite common for Ichiro, though.
Not only did he reach the 200-hit plateau in ten seasons, but he did it in his first ten seasons. He is the only hitter in MLB history to have 200 hits in ten consecutive years.
This type of consistency is what my favorite hitters are usually made of.
Sure, we all go crazy for home runs, but I admire a player that can year in and year out produce at a high level, not just hit 50 home runs one season and then hit 19 home runs the next season.
I am all about players that hit for average versus players that are power hitters. To me, players that hit for average have entirely different approaches when at the plate compared to the hitters that are trying to hit a home run.
What I mean by this is that power hitters are constantly looking for one pitch that they can hit a mile. For a player that hits for average, they are never looking for one pitch. They react to the pitch that is coming and hit the ball to the part of the field according to where the placement of the pitch is.
Similar to Tony Gwynn and Ichiro Suzuki, Derek Jeter was a nightmare at the plate.
Derek Jeter’s inside-out swing just drove pitchers crazy. All thought pounding him inside would counteract his inside-out swing, but somehow Derek would not do too much and just slap that inside pitch to the opposite field.
Now let’s get into some stats. Derek Jeter played his entire career under the New York Yankees spotlight, which can break most players. Let’s see how Derek fared.
Throughout his 20-year career, Derek finished with 3,465 hits. No Yankees player has more hits than Jeter. He finished his career with eight 200-hit seasons and 17 consecutive seasons of 150 hits.
The only other player to hit that many consecutive 150-hit seasons is a man already on this list. Hammerin’ Hank Aaron.
Another amazing hitting statistic for Derek is that he is one of two players to have 3,000 hits, 250 home runs, 300 stolen bases, and 1,200 runs batted in club. The other player in this club is someone you may have heard of: Hall of Famer Willie Mays.
Another hitting club that Derek Jeter is a part of is even more special than the previous one he shared with only Willie Mays. This club only has one member, and that’s Derek Jeter.
No one else has had 11 seasons where their batting average was over .300 and they finished with double-digit home runs and steals. The closest player to almost join this club was Barry Bonds, but he finished with eight seasons.
If those last two hitting stats don’t convince you of Derek Jeter’s hitting greatness, I’m not quite sure I can come up with any other hitting stats that prove this former Yankees great deserves to be on this list.
Let’s finish off with who many consider to be the best hitter in the game today – Mike Trout.
This two-time Most Valuable Player has already put in another MVP-quality season in 2018 and was one of the three finalists to win again, although Mookie Betts claimed the 2018 award in the end.
Besides the two AL MVP awards, Mike Trout has two All Star Game MVP awards, he has appeared in eight All Star Games, was the Rookie of the Year, and finally has seven Silver Slugger awards.
Trout’s current career batting average sits at .307, which in today’s game of not many players hitting above .300 is always impressive. He currently has 240 home runs, 624 runs batted in, and 793 runs scored.
Trout is another player that managers will always have a game plan for. He is the one player that you can’t let beat you, and he still comes up with his game-changing plays.
As long as Trout can continue to stay healthy, he will put up the numbers that rival any of the retired hitters on this list.
There are all types of hitters that make it to the majors. You have your power hitters and your hitters that hit for average. Then there are players that are on a whole other level.
When putting my list of favorite hitters together, I tried to cover both ends of the spectrum.
If I had to pick one as my favorite, I would tend to lean towards the players that outsmart the pitchers – the type of hitter that hits the ball where the pitch dictates, not some juiced-up meathead trying to hit a grand slam with one guy on base.
Sometimes a walk is as good as a single, or a single is as productive as a double in the gap or as a home run.
Hitting is a mental game between the hitter and the pitcher, and it takes a special kind of player to be able to be a step ahead of their opponents.
However, whichever way you look at it, there are great power hitters and great players that hit for average. Hopefully, after reading my list, you can see that even though “Chicks dig the long ball,” some of the best hitters in the game quickly realize that’s not what it’s all hyped up to be.
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