Top Ten Active Baseball Players in Career Batting Average and Their Hall of Fame Chances

There are twenty-one current Major League Baseball players with at least 3,000 plate appearances that hold lifetime batting averages of better than .300. Several of them are first ballot Hall of Famers when they retire, while others simply carved out a very nice niche in the sport for themselves as an accomplished hitter. Some of the names among these lifetime active .300 hitters will be of no surprise, but you may find a few unexpected players in the mix. Here is the list of the top ten, with their Hall of Fame chances rated on a 1 to 10 scale, with 10 being a no-brainer lock for Cooperstown.

Ichiro Suzuki-Seattle Mariners
Ichiro leads all active players in career batting average with his .333 standard, including a .352 mark in 2007. He has scored over 100 runs in each of his seven seasons in MLB and has never accumulated fewer than 200 hits in a season. As high as Suzuki's lifetime average is, it only ranks 25th all-time, but it is the second highest average of any player that began his career after 1980; only Tony Gwynn's .338 is better. He owns a pair of AL batting crowns. HOF chances- 9 (as long as he plays the required ten seasons.)

Todd Helton- Colorado Rockies
Helton has never batted lower than .302 for a full season, but skeptics always point to his playing half his games in spacious and high-altitude Coors Field in Denver. Helton's .331 lifetime average comes with five 100 plus runs batted in seasons, including two over 145. Two Gold Gloves and one NL batting title may someday balance the scales in Todd's favor. HOF chances-7

Albert Pujols- St. Louis Cardinals
Pujols hits at a career .330 clip and has put up unprecedented power numbers in his first seven years in baseball. He owns a National League MVP and a batting title and if he were hit by a truck tomorrow he would be put in the Hall of Fame on a special waiver. HOF chances-10

Vladimir Guerrero- Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
If Vlad can reach it he can hit it hard somewhere, to the tune of .325 in a dozen seasons. He is still just 31 years old, with nine one-hundred RBI campaigns and the 2004 AL MVP on his mantle at home. HOF chances-10

Derek Jeter- New York Yankees
The captain of the Bronx Bombers is in his 13th year in Major League Baseball and he owns five 200 hit seasons, a Rookie of the Year honor, is an eight-time All-Star and grabbed a trio of Gold Gloves. Jeter has already scored over 1,300 runs in his career and will probably end up with over 3,000 hits before he retires. Right now he is a career .317 hitter. HOF chances-10

Nomar Garciaparra- Los Angeles Dodgers
Nobody on this list has fallen as far as Nomar has, mainly because of a myriad of nagging injuries. He still is a two-time AL batting champion, including a .372 average in 2000. Nomar's power numbers are down by a considerable margin from his Red Sox days; he has hit only 6 home runs this year in 400 at-bats, and what was once a sure path to the Hall is now a rocky road, despite a lifetime .318 average coming into 2007. HOF chances-3

Manny Ramirez-Boston Red Sox
A pure hitter if one was ever born, Manny owns a home run title, an RBI crown, and led the AL in batting in 2002 with a .349 average. He is currently a .313 batsman, and more importantly, if he garners 14 more RBI this year he will have had an even seasons dozen over the century mark. His 490 home runs are the most of anyone on this list. HOF chances-9

Magglio Ordonez-Detroit Tigers
Having rebounded from two lost seasons in 2004 and 2005 to once again become a feared slugger, Magglio is a .310 hitter over 11 years in the bigs. Ordonez is neck and neck with Ichiro for the batting race in 2007, and he leads as of this writing with a .354 mark. He has six seasons of 100 or more runs batted in and another of 99, but he is 33 and those two years where he played little due to injury may haunt him as far as Cooperstown is concerned. HOF chances-6

Mike Piazza-Oakland Athletics
Even though Mike has stayed around long, long past his prime and hasn't hit better than .286 in the last six years, he still has a .308 lifetime batting average. That should tell you how good he once was; he hit .362 in 1997, as a catcher. Piazza has never led his league in any important offensive category, but his feats at the plate, and not behind it for sure, should carry him to the ultimate stop for any baseball player in the end. HOF chances-8

Chipper Jones-Atlanta Braves
A dreadful 2004 campaign, where he hit .248, cost Chipper a few points on the career average, which right now stands at .308. Eight 100 plus RBI years, and four more over 85, may make up for a lack of batting and power titles, although he was voted the NL MVP in 1999. HOF chances-6