PB2A (Revised)

Revision 

Baseball has always been a passion of mine. Some of my fondest Falls were spent bundled-up, slackly standing in the outfield, and waiting for a ball to get hit my way. As I grew older, my love for the game faded as new hobbies were introduced to me, but to this day there's something about the baseball field that beckons.

For my independent study proposal I wanted to pose a question that would feed some of my interests. Given the new wave of analytics that has inched its way in to the back offices of teams throughout the MLB, and my affection for baseball and statistics, it was a topic that I wanted to uncover more about.

My interest in baseball statistical analysis, more commonly referred to as Sabermetrics, began just before the Phillies took the field this past season. I attended a conference on analytics hosted by the team where I was apart of various lectures and a Q&A session with personnel. As I further my career in Economics I have a vested interest in figuring out the way the world works and felt like there was no where better to start my undergraduate research than somewhere that feels so familiar to my inner being.

My revised research question, then, goes as follows: How does management and coaching use Sabermetrics to optimize decision making in the MLB?

Over the next month I look forward to digging deeper into the numbers and broadening my knowledge on a topic that is so near and dear to my heart.

Key Words: Sabermetrics, Baseball Statistics, MLB, Analytics, Sport Science, Moneyball

Sources

Burroughs, Benjamin. “Statistics and Baseball Fandom: Sabermetric Infrastructure of Expertise.” Games and Culture, 2018.

Frankel, Matthew J. “Secret Sabermetrics: Trade Secret Protection in the Baseball Analytics Field.” Albany Government Law Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2012, p. 240.

Howard, Herman. “The Sabermetric Revolution: Assessing the Growth of Analytics in Baseball Benjamin Baumer and Andrew Zimbalist. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.” The Journal of American Culture, vol. 39, no. 1, 2016, pp. 129–130.

Marx, G. “Challenges to Mainstream Journalism in Baseball and Politics.” Forum-a Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, vol. 9, no. 1, 2011.

Mertz, J., et al. “Ranking the Greatest Nba Players: a Sport Metrics Analysis.” International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, vol. 16, no. 3, 2016, pp. 737–759.

Puerzer, Richard J. “From Scientific Baseball to Sabermetrics: Professional Baseball as a Reflection of Engineering and Management in Society.” NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, vol. 11, no. 1, 2002, pp. 34–48.

Talsma, Gary. “Data Analysis and Baseball.” The Mathematics Teacher, vol. 92, no. 8, 1999, pp. 738–742.