who has the lowest batting average in major league baseball
Batting average Ty Cobb holds the record for highest career batting average with .366, 9 points higher than Rogers Hornsby who has the second highest average in history at .358. The record for lowest career batting average for a player with more than 2,500 at-bats belongs to Bill Bergen, a catcher who played from 1901 to 1911 and recorded a .170 average in 3,028 career at-bats. The modern-era record for highest batting average for a season is held by Napoleon Lajoie, who hit .426 in 1901, the first year of play for the American League. The modern-era record for lowest batting average for a player that qualified for the batting title is held by Rob Deer, who hit .179 in 1991. While finishing six plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting title, Adam Dunn of the Chicago White Sox hit .159 for the 2011 season, twenty points (and 11.2%) lower than the record. The highest batting average for a rookie was .408 in 1911 by Shoeless Joe Jackson.