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It depends on the era, but generally .270 is an above-average hitter. In the 1920s or '30s, it would've been pretty bad (league average was mostly .280-ish, sometimes as high as .290) but today it's solid (average last year for the two leagues combined was .253).
Back in Bench's day it was even lower—the NL hit .248 in 1972, so .270 was pretty well above-average. Not quite so low 1955, but Yogi was still above average. Of course Kaline got robbed, but the point is that a "low" (compared to .300) average hasn't stopped MVP voters in the past, nor should it.
God, 1969 was a hell of a year, huh? There were like six different guys you could've given it to. That's an amazing number of guys hitting 30+ homers with pretty good averages (AL average was .246 that year).
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