Batting average is a fantastic stat used in proper context. Should it die...what would you replace the standard batting line with? Only OBP and SLG? They just don't tell the whole story. These two players are considerably different in their makeup, but without BA, you wouldn't know that player one is more a patience and pop guy (ISO .225) whereas player two is likely more of a singles and doubles speed guy (ISO .120).

.250/.390/.475
.340/.400/.460

Of course the danger of batting average is when it becomes the terminus of the analysis. For example, "he's hitting .290, which means he's pretty good" is meaningless and infuriating, especially when the guy's OBP is .297. Many writers stop at BA and use it out of context, which I suppose is the cause for calling for its death.

I don't think AVG needs to go away completely, it just needs context -- the 3-part AVG/OBP/SLG listing is extremely useful, and AVG is important in that -- without it you don't know how patient someone is, or how much raw power they have -- is that guy with a .330 OBP and a .450 SLG Garrett Anderson or Mark Bellhorn? (Ok -- the numbers aren't exactly right, but you get the point.)

Now, whether or not TV guys would put that many numbers on the screen is a different question, but in it's contracted form it doesn't take up THAT much space. That's what I'd like to see when batters come up, along with HR and (yes, heresy) RBI (since RBI do actually measure something important a hitter has done in the context of the season, even though it may not be an inherent skill).

"ITS contracted form". Arrgh. Hoisted on my own grammar petard.

I still hate Posnanski.

And yes, batting average shouldn't die. I mean, RBIs - by the same measure of being outdated and not completely accurate - should die, too. But RBIs can indicate how well a player hits with men on, and can help managers (or critics thereof) decide batting order. You just have to know when you use them.

Anyone who is even a remotely interested baseball fan, not even a "serious" fan, will go beyond batting average if they want to know more about a player. Or they'll watch that player for a while and figure out the larger picture themselves.
But batting average is an important stat because it gives an immediate outline of what's happening, and some quick info to start with. That's why it's valuable.
To think that most baseball fans are exclusively using batting average to value a player is silly. If writers tend to do that, I would say most do because they have a short column space, they don't assume every reader is an aficionado, and because they know the serious fans will dig deeper on their own.

Remember that batting avg. is also easy to calculate. I remember as a kid (pre-internet, pre-Baseball Tonight) figuring out my favorite player's average quite simply out of box scores. To calculate the OBP, you have to factor in sacrifices and HBP, stats that aren't always readily available.

The only reason BA is easy to calculate and OBP isn't is because AB's are shown in boxscores and PA's aren't. Getting on base vs. making an out is what matters. (Times on base)/(Times on base + Outs Made) is what should replace BA. (Bases Advanced by All Runners including the Batter)/(Bases Advanced + Outs Made) should replace SLG. And that would be all you'd really need, although I'd throw in RBI Average: (RBI-HR)/(RBI-HR+LOB+GDP).

What a horrible piece of writing. Here's my response to that piece of rubbish:

{{If you bunt a runner from first to second, that’s considered a “sacrifice.” And it doesn’t count against your batting average. That’s great. But if you hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield and move a runner from second to third, well that’s not considered a sacrifice. That counts as an out. Why? Nobody knows.}}

Wrong. The batting average represents the following very important ratio: The # of times the batter struck the ball in such a way that the defense could not be fairly expected to get him out AND actually ended up safe (definition of “a hit”)– Divided by – The number of times the batter had a legitimate opportunity to do the same thing (hereafter referred to as “an AB”). By “legitimate opportunity” is meant essentially a situation where the pitcher threw you strikes. If a pitcher throws you four balls before three strikes or hits you, you weren’t given a legitimate opportunity to get a “hit,” and therefore a walk or a HB doesn’t count for or against your average. The gerund for the verb “ to hit” is “hitting.” Perhaps the BA should be called instead the “Hitting Average.” Perhaps this would clear up your confusion. The batting average is designed to tell you how good a “hitter” the person is, not how much good he has done for the team. Therefore, occasions where the hitter did not even attempt to get a hit, for instance Sac bunts and Sac flies, should not count against the player’s average (actually this is one place where the BA is not so precise; it’s certainly not the case that a person who hits a sac fly is never trying to get a “hit”, and there are probably other situations that shouldn’t be included as “ABs”). Conversely, if the player is trying to get a “hit” (or most likely trying to get a hit) and doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, for the sake of this specialized statistic, what good comes out of the at bat. Thus, even though someone who “moves a runner over” has helped the team, he has usually tried and failed to get a “hit,” and each one of those occasions should be counted to get an overall picture of how successful somebody is at doing that. Now, there are all sorts of things you can do to help your team at the plate. Getting a “hit” is not the only thing you can do. For instance, you can move a runner over, as you point out. But, “hitting” is the most important and most elemental job of a hitter, and thus the BA will always remain a vital statistic.

{{How about this: You hit a slow grounder to short, but you run your heart out and force the shortstop to rush. He throws the ball away. According to batting average, you’re out. Of course, you’re not out. You’re safe. You’re standing at second base. But you count as out. Your batting average just went down.}}

Wrong again. In the situation you just described, the correct ruling would be a “hit.” If the shortstop were “forced to rush” enough so that an average major league player could not be expected to make the throw, then it would be a hit. If, on the other hand, the average shortstop could be expected to make the throw, then you shouldn’t get a hit, because you didn’t do your fundamental job as a hitter, which is to strike the ball so that the defense can’t get you out. It’s not enough to hit it so they might not have gotten you out if they were a below-average shortstop.

{{Next time up, you hit a lazy pop-up to center field. The guy isn’t wearing his sunglasses. He loses the ball in the sun and lets it drop. Now, that counts as a hit. Your batting average just went up.}}

This is just an aberration in the rules. To be consistent with the idea that the BA represents, this should count as an error.

{{Mostly, there’s the entire walk and hit-by-pitch situation. These are a pretty big part of the game. And they don’t count at all in batting average. It’s like they never happened. You can foul off 17 pitches and draw your walk. It counts as no at-bat. Your batting average remains the same. You get hit in the ribs by a 95-mph Roger Clemens fastball. No at-bat. Your batting average remains the same.}}

I’ve already explained this. The BA, while it does a fairly accurate job of representing a vital attribute of a player, does not describe every possible positive trait of a player at the plate, nor is it intended to do so, and nor has it ever been held out by anybody as doing so. Any idea you have that it is “supposed” to represent more than it does is purely a fiction that you created in your own mind, making you, ironically, guilty of the same small-mindedness of which you accuse others. Yes, you can get on base by getting a walk or getting hit by a pitch. If you want to know how good a person is at getting on base, look at his OBP. Again, nobody, except maybe the voice in your head, is saying that OBP wasn’t important

{{There’s no other statistic in sports that is so misleading, so incomplete, so lacking. Batting average does tell you something, but it doesn’t tell you much. It’s like watching a movie through a keyhole. I asked author Bill James to describe batting average in real-life terms. He said using batting average to rate a player’s hitting ability is like:}}

Batting average does tell you something, and I’ve already explained what that something is. It should be fairly obvious that that something is actually very important. The comparisons you list to the batting average are moronic. Allow me to correct one of your idiotic examples.

Doctor’s Average: patients the doctor cured / total number of patients he attempted to cure, and was in a position to cure. See: just like BA, It is designed to tell you how good the doctor is at what he does, not how often good results happen. If the doctor sucks, but God cures the patients anyway (“miracles” are the doctor’s average (DA)’s equivalent of a “walk”) the doctor will have a 0.0 DA. On the other hand, if the doctor gets all terminal patients with no hope of survival, and they all die, he will also have a 0.0 DA.

The rest of the article is taken up with giving examples of how “they” always put Batting Average first, and how teams with highest BA are “said to” be the best…blah blah blah. This is what philosophers, lawyers, and other, more intelligent sportswriters call a “straw man” argument. It’s when you set up an argument that nobody, or only an idiot, actually believes and then proceed to argue against it. OK, so KC spare hit .287 and then got sent to the minors. What does that tell you? The KC GM saw right through the average. Obviously, he wasn’t one of “them,” and neither am I. Maybe you just figured out that the BA isn’t the end all be all of baseball statistics, but don’t foist your ignorance on the rest of us.

LONG LIVE BA!