No player has ever hit more than 38 homers with a batting average below .200. He now has 45 homers and a .196 average.
Joey Gallo used to own this curious high/low sub-category of the baseball records. In 2021, he set the record for the most homers by a player below .200, when he went yard 38 times while batting .199.
Schwarber already holds the dubious record for the lowest batting average by a player with 45 or more homers. He led the NL in homers last year with 46 while batting .218.
There were players in previous eras that had low averages with many homers, but they were not usually good at reaching base. Dave Kingman batted .210 with 35 homers one year, but his OBP was an embarrassing .255. That was nearly a duplicate of a season posted by Tony Armas three years earlier, when he batted .218 with 36 homers and a pathetic .254 OBP.
Reflecting the new trends in baseball, both Gallo and Schwarber are actually quite good at reaching base, despite their low batting averages. Schwarber has a .344 OBP this year, thanks to 123 walks. Gallo’s OBP was .351 in 2021 because he drew 111 walks.
(Those OBPs are above average. To illustrate, Schwarber gets on base more often than Bo Bichette, even though Bichette’s batting average is above .300. Many all-time greats had lifetime OBPs below .344: Dave Parker, Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, Cal Ripken, Pudge Rodriguez, Don Baylor, Johnny Bench …)