Lowest career BA to go with 100 HRs

[Petert]

If you include pitchers and lower the standard to 20 HRs you have Milt Pappas who hit .123 with 20 HRs.

Maybe Milt Pappas was Zunino's Idol when he was a kid...?

You might remember Earl Wilson, who was sometimes called upon to pinch-hit when he wasn’t pitching for Boston or Detroit. A .195 BA, but 35 career HRs.

This actually makes me wonder about pitchers coming up from the other end of the spectrum - highest BA and HRs.

[Hy Feiber]

Check out Mike Hampton, hit .246 lifetime, over 700 at bats, hit 7 hrs in 2001, with a .291 avg.

In 1999 he hit over .300!

https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... mi01.shtml

[Moe Gibbs]

I remember both Earl Wilson and Mike Hampton well. The guy [pitcher] who could really hit and he did it consistently over a pretty long career was Terry Forster.
A guy who was an all NCAA DH and great college pitcher was Tim Lollar. I thought he was headed for stardom as a MLB pitcher but his career fizzled. He could really hit though.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... ti01.shtml

I thought this topic might be interesting because I didn't come away with any ready made search results for lowest BA with at least 100 HRS. I did manage to see a search result for the worst hitters with 400 HRs. We all know who the king of that category must be.

[bhofferb]

If you include pitchers and lower the standard to 20 HRs you have Milt Pappas who hit .123 with 20 HRs.

Maybe Milt Pappas was Zunino's Idol when he was a kid...?

You might remember Earl Wilson, who was sometimes called upon to pinch-hit when he wasn’t pitching for Boston or Detroit. A .195 BA, but 35 career HRs.

This actually makes me wonder about pitchers coming up from the other end of the spectrum - highest BA and HRs.

I’m assuming we are leaving that Ruth kid that pitched for the Red Sox back in the day out of the contest?

[Hy Feiber]

I remember both Earl Wilson and Mike Hampton well. The guy [pitcher] who could really hit and he did it consistently over a pretty long career was Terry Forster.
A guy who was an all NCAA DH and great college pitcher was Tim Lollar. I thought he was headed for stardom as a MLB pitcher but his career fizzled. He could really hit though.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... ti01.shtml

I thought this topic might be interesting because I didn't come away with any ready made search results for lowest BA with at least 100 HRS. I did manage to see a search result for the worst hitters with 400 HRs. We all know who the king of that category must be.

Excellent topic Moe, really got my brain going.

Instantly thought of Dave Kingman but he hit .236 lifetime.

Luis Valbuena with 114 hrs, hit .226.

[Donn Beach]

Jason Vargas could hit, batted .354 with 14 doubles and five home runs his junior year at Long Beach State

[Captain 97]

Of course your not going to find anyone with a lower batting average that hit 100 home runs. You will have a hard enough time just finding players that played more than a couple seasons that have a lower average than him period. Fangraphs isn't working right now for me to look it up but I believe there are only three players including Mathis in the last 100 years with 2000 AB's that have a lower avg than Zunino. Like Mathis they were career backup catchers.

[Bil522]

Dave Kingman had 130 HR's in years where he hit under .210. There were just some years he could not hit.

[D-train]

Adam Dunn with 462 HRs and a .237 BA.

[Hy Feiber]

If you include pitchers and lower the standard to 20 HRs you have Milt Pappas who hit .123 with 20 HRs.

Maybe Milt Pappas was Zunino's Idol when he was a kid...?

You might remember Earl Wilson, who was sometimes called upon to pinch-hit when he wasn’t pitching for Boston or Detroit. A .195 BA, but 35 career HRs.

This actually makes me wonder about pitchers coming up from the other end of the spectrum - highest BA and HRs.

I am old enough to remember when some pitchers actually were used as pinch-runners.