On-base percentage is the stat most coaches would keep if they could only keep one, and it's the one parents have the least feel for. A .350 batting average is obviously excellent. Is a .350 OBP? Here are the actual numbers.
The 2025 league-wide OBP across all 30 clubs was .315. But a league average includes every part-time player, so the more useful view is the spread across the 145 qualified hitters — the regulars who took enough plate appearances to make the leaderboard.
| Level | 2025 OBP | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom of the qualified group | .268 | The lowest qualified regular in 2025 |
| 25th percentile | .311 | A below-average regular |
| Median qualified hitter | .329 | A genuinely average everyday big leaguer |
| 75th percentile | .350 | A good regular — top quarter of the league |
| 90th percentile | .365 | Excellent |
| League leader | .457 | Aaron Judge, 2025 |
So the rough guide most people repeat — .350 is good, .400 is elite — turns out to be about right, and if anything understates how hard .400 is.
Because outs are the only truly limited resource in baseball. A team gets 27 of them (or 18, or 21 in youth ball) and the innings end when they run out. OBP measures the one thing that matters most: how often this player avoids making an out.
Batting average can't see that. Two hitters go 1-for-4. One struck out three times; the other walked twice on top of those four at-bats. Both show a .250 average. Their on-base percentages are .250 and .500, and the second player did far more to keep the inning alive. There's a fuller comparison in OBP vs batting average.
The MLB numbers above do not transfer, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Youth OBP is driven overwhelmingly by one thing that has nothing to do with your child: how wild the pitching is.
There is no comprehensive public dataset of youth on-base percentages by age, so any page giving you a single number for 10U has invented it.
OBP = (hits + walks + hit-by-pitch) ÷ (at-bats + walks + hit-by-pitch + sacrifice flies). Sacrifice bunts are excluded from the formula entirely; sacrifice flies are not. Reaching on an error doesn't count as reaching base for OBP purposes.
The on-base percentage calculator does it instantly, and the OPS calculator gives you OBP, slugging and OPS together from one line. To collect the numbers in the first place, the free printable scorecard or the game stat sheet is all you need.
Judged against 2025 Major League regulars: the median qualified hitter was at .329, .350 puts a player in the top quarter, .365 in the top tenth, and .400 is exceptional — only one of 145 qualified hitters reached it in 2025. The league-wide figure including part-time players was .315.
There is no trustworthy published benchmark, because youth on-base percentage depends heavily on how wild the pitching is at that level. Watch the gap between OBP and batting average, the trend across the season, and your own league's leaderboard instead.
It is outstanding. In the 2025 Major League season exactly one qualified hitter finished at .400 or better.
The league-wide on-base percentage was .315 across all 30 clubs. Among qualified regulars only, the median was .329.
OBP counts walks and hit-by-pitch as reaching base, while batting average counts only hits and excludes walks from the calculation entirely. The 2025 MLB-wide gap was 70 points: .315 OBP against a .245 average.
No. Reaching base on a fielding error does not count as reaching base for on-base percentage, and the plate appearance still counts in the denominator, so it lowers OBP.