Late Round Targets for Fantasy Baseball – Batting Average

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  • By Paul Williamson

    Last Updated on March 6, 2026 2:19 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: March 6, 2026

    I don’t need to go too much into the notion that the overall batting average in MLB is… down.

    Last year, the average MLB batting average was .245.

    It has not been over .250 since 2019. The highest it has been since then was .248 in ’22.

    That means, finding batting average assets late in draft is a worthwhile practice.

    If you know where to fortify your average later in your draft, you can focus on the more ‘sexier’ counting stats like homers, steals, runs and RBI.

    I will focus this article on dudes available  a bit past pick 250 in NFBC Online Championships since February 1.

    Honorable Mentions

    These are bats that have ADPs that hover around the 250 cutline

    • OF Mickey Moniak (251.66) – He plays in Coors and has a .270+ BA in two of his last three seasons. The xBA was .262 with a 45.3% hard-hit rate. He also has a good line drive rate of 22%. Yeah, he’s a platoon so he is just a bench depth option in 12-team standard formats but is a great dude to plug in when your starters are out to bad that average.
    • 3B Alec Bohm (260.29, NOTE: His ADP dropped about 10 spots since March 2, when I started writing) – He has a .274+ batting average in four straight seasons, topping out at last year’s .287.  He was .280+ in three of those four. Add on his high-volume usage and place in the order, he is a high average and counting stat accumulator.
    • 1B Luis Arraez (274.54) – Yeah, he is a good bit beyond 250 but he is also the ‘free space’ in an article like this. Batting average is Arraez’s calling card in fantasy. No need to get more in dept that that.
    SS/3B Carlos Correa (273.77)

    His batting average floor makes him a favorite target of mine. He has hit .270+ in four of his last five seasons, topping out at .310 in ’24 and .291 in ’22.

    Correa has a 44.5%+ hard-hit% in three straight seasons. The xBA has been .268+ in those four seasons. He has always had a 20%+ line drive rate as well.

    Add on an elite ht tool (79%+ contact% in eight of his last nine seasons) and we have someone who hits a lot of line drives and a lot balls hard.

    T.,J. Friedl (263.62)

    He  has hit .261 and .279 to sandwich a poor .226 in 2024.

    He has never been someone with a good xBA but he has checked a lot of boxes to let me ignore that.

    First, he has 1000+ PA of good batting average (combining 2023 and 2025 and ignoring the outlier of 341 PA of 2024). We can safely start to question the expected stats at this point.

    Friedl has  a great hit tool with a career 15.9% K%. That is further supported by a SwStr% consistently at or below 7.0%.

    He has an 89%+ Z-Con% in four straight seasons, (91% two straight).so he puts the ball in plat a lot with solid speed.

    He also got his line drive rate up to 22.0% last year. So lots of contact, lots of line drives… sounds like a good average to me.

    2B Brendan Donovan (274.18)

    He is a career .282 hitter with a career low of .278.

    In 2008 PA, we don’t really have to justify him with a ton of data.

    We can just trust it at this point.


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    March 6, 2026, 2:19 pm