Every hitter in fantasy baseball drafts can’t stuff the stat sheet. As a result, sometimes gamers must target specific statistics. The following hitters are targets for gamers in need of batting average help.
Fantasy Baseball Draft Targets
Batting Average Targets
Nico Hoerner (2B – CHC): 93.6 ADP
Nice Hoerner is the only featured player with a top-100 average draft position (ADP). Furthermore, the second-earliest ADP featured in this piece is outside the top 120 picks. Hoerner’s ADP makes him the 61st-ranked hitter after finishing the 2025 season as the 39th-ranked hitter in our value-based ranking (VBR) metric.
One of Hoerner’s calling cards is his batting average. His .297 batting average was the eighth-highest among qualified hitters last season. He owns a .282 batting average for his career, and Hoerner’s .284 batting average since 2023 is tied for the 15th-best mark.
Hoerner doesn’t give away plate appearances via strikeouts. According to FanGraphs, his 10.0 K% is the fourth-lowest among qualified batters since 2023, and his 7.6 K% in 2025 was the third lowest among qualified hitters.
The 28-year-old second baseman’s superb batting average is also supported by his batted-ball data. He had a .292 expected batting average (xBA) in 2025, .280 xBA in 2024 and .273 xBA in 2023.
Hoerner is also a mainstay on the field, increasing the impact of his batting average. Working backwards from 2025 to 2023, he’s rattled off 649, 641 and 688 plate appearances and played at least 150 games in each of those campaigns. Hoerner doesn’t walk often, either. So, he’s not cutting into his plate appearances with free passes. Hoerner is an outstanding target for a batting average boost, and he’s worth a top-100 pick because he isn’t a one-trick pony and moves the needle in runs and stolen bases.
Steven Kwan (OF – CLE): 153.4 ADP
Steven Kwan is nearly a carbon copy of Hoerner. The outfielder’s stolen base contributions don’t quite stack up with Hoerner’s, and Kwan had a .272 batting average in 693 plate appearances last year, which was 25 points lower than Hoerner’s.
Nevertheless, Kwan’s .281 batting average in 2,589 plate appearances since debuting in the Majors in 2022 nearly matches Hoerner’s .282 batting average in 2,873 career plate appearances. Kwan had a .285 batting average, .307 BABIP and 9.8 K% in 1,896 plate appearances before last season.
Kwan had an 8.7 K% and a career-low .283 BABIP in 693 plate appearances in his age-27 season. Kwan’s batted-ball quality wasn’t quite as good as in prior years, as evidenced by his .274 xBA in 2025, .284 xBA in 2024 and .282 xBA in 2023. Still, his track record and elite bat-to-ball skills make him a rebound candidate in batting average, and his .272 batting average from last year looks more like a floor than his median expectation. Kwan is an ideal batting average target at an affordable ADP, and, like Hoerner, he can chip in elsewhere, too.
Jacob Wilson (SS – ATH): 166.2 ADP
Jacob Wilson is a holdover from my 10 Must-Have Hitters article, and his ADP is 6.3 spots earlier since that was published. Among qualified hitters in 2025, Wilson was second in strikeout rate (7.5 K%), tied for second in batting average (.311), third in contact rate (91.7%) and tied for 18th in expected batting average (.277).
Wilson doesn’t swing and miss. His home ballpark also boosts his bat. According to Baseball Savant’s 2025 park factors, Sutter Health Park was second for runs (117) and second for hits (107). Wilson’s stick is legit, and FanGraphs awarded him a 60 current grade and 70 future grade on the 20-to-80 scouting scale for his hit tool on his final scouting report, supporting his juicy batting average.
Finally, he had a .295 batting average in 266 plate appearances and a .328 batting average in 257 plate appearances at home in 2025. Thus, he didn’t just benefit from hitting at Sutter Health Park, and his batting average was pristine on the road as well.
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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.