APPLICATION OF THE AHP METHOD IN SELECTING BASEBALL PITCHERS
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.sidebar##
Abstract
The use of scientific methods to determine performance results and analyze the effectiveness of sports players constitutes a powerful tool that can help coaches and teams make better decisions and adequately use available resources. Pitcher selection is a strategic decision that significantly influences the performance of a professional baseball team. In this study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) models were built to rank the performance of baseball pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States. There are three relevant aspects of this research. First, the models allow the evaluation of the overall performance of the pitcher, considering his skills and performance as a pitcher as well as his fielding and batting contributions. To evaluate the overall performance of a pitcher, well-known standard professional baseball statistics were used. Second, to highlight the flexibility of the model, four models were created according to the type of pitcher (starter or reliever) and the league in which he plays (American or National league). Finally, a distinctive feature of the models is their general scope. The experts were only required to determine the best criteria and subcriteria and the priorities of the hierarchical structure of the models, but they were not needed to rank the pitchers (alternatives). The models were applied to different emblematic MLB awards and the results produced by the models coincide with the pitchers who actually won the awards.
How to Cite
Downloads
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Analytic Hierarchy Process; AHP; Baseball; Pitchers; MLB
Chen, C. and Chen, T. (2009). Starting pitchers’ skills positioning of CPBL in 2008. Journal of Physical Education, 8, 109-125.
Chen, W. and Johnson, A. (2010). The dynamics of performance space of MLB pitchers. Annals of Operations Research, 181(1), 287-302. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10479-010-0743-9
Chen, C., Lin, M., Lee, Y., Chen, T. and Tseng, C. (2010). Best starting pitcher of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in 2009. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 2010, 72, 210-212. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27552-4_86
Chen, C., Lee, Y. and Tsai, C. (2014) Professional baseball team starting pitcher selection using AHP and TOPSIS methods, International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 14(2), 545-563. https://doi.org/10.1080/24748668.2014.11868742
Forman, E., and Peniwati, K. (1998). Aggregating individual judgments and priorities with the analytic hierarchy process. European Journal of Operational Research, 108(1), 165-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0377-2217(97)00244-0
Gould, E. and Winter, E. (2009). Interaction between worker and the technology of production: evidence from professional baseball. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 91(1), 188-200. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest.91.1.188
Haupert, M. J. (2007) Bonus clauses and the standard player contract. The Baseball Research Journal, 36, 109-116.
Lee, Y. H. (2018). Common factors in Major League Baseball game attendance. Journal of Sports Economics, 19(4), 583-598. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527002516672061
Liberatore, M. J., and Nydick, R. L. (2008). The analytic hierarchy process in medical and health care decision making: A literature review. European Journal of Operational Research, 189(1), 194-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2007.05.001
Nisel, S., and Özdemir, M. (2016). Analytic hierarchy process & analytic network process in sport: a comprehensive literature review. International Journal of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, 8(3), 405-429. https://doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v8i3.448
Ossadnik, W., Schinke, S., and Kaspar, R. H. (2016). Group aggregation techniques for analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process: a comparative analysis. Group Decision and Negotiation, 25, 421-457. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-015-9448-4
Panchal, S., and Shrivastava, A. K. (2022). Landslide hazard assessment using analytic hierarchy process (AHP): A case study of National Highway 5 in India. Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 13(3), 1016-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2021.10.021
Powers, A. T. (2015). The business of baseball. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co. Inc.
Real, A. (2019). The advantages of incorporating mechanisms from the salary arbitration models of MLB and the NHL in a salary arbitration system in MLS. Pepperdine. Dispute Resoution Journal, 19(1), 1-17.
Saaty, T. (1980). The Analytic Hierarchy Process. New York: McGraw Hill International.
Saaty, T. (1990). How to make a decision: The Analytic Hierarchy Process. European Journal of Operational Research, 48, 9-26. https://doi.org/10.13128/Aestimum-7138
Saaty, T. (2008). Decision making with the analytic hierarchy process. International Journal of Services Sciences 1(1), 83-98. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSSCI.2008.017590
Scala, N. M. (2008). Decision modeling and applications to Major League Baseball pitcher substitution. In 29th Annual National Conference of the American Society for Engineering Management 2008, ASEM 2008 (pp. 212-217). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh.
The Official Site of Major League Baseball (a) (n.d.). Inside MLB Awards: Cy Young. https://www.mlb.com/awards/cy-young
The Official Site of Major League Baseball (b) (n.d.). Relievers of the Year. https://www.mlb.com/awards/reliever-of-the-year
Vaidya, O. S., and Kumar, S. (2006). Analytic hierarchy process: An overview of applications. European Journal of Operational Research, 169(1), 1-29.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2004.04.028
Veisi, H., Deihimfard, R., Shahmohammadi, A., and Hydarzadeh, Y. (2022). Application of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in a multi-criteria selection of agricultural irrigation systems. Agricultural Water Management, 267, 107619.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2022.107619
Vistuer-Valdés, J. (1995). Béisbol. La acción de batear. Playa, Cuba: Editorial Científico-Técnica.
Yong, W. (2021, March). Analytic Hierarchy Process and intelligent evaluation of regional sports economic data. In 2021 International Conference on Intelligent Transportation, Big Data & Smart City (ICITBS). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICITBS53129.2021.00098
Copyright of all articles published in IJAHP is transferred to Creative Decisions Foundation (CDF). However, the author(s) reserve the following:
- All proprietary rights other than copyright, such as patent rights.
- The right to grant or refuse permission to third parties to republish all or part of the article or translations thereof. In case of whole articles, such third parties must obtain permission from CDF as well. However, CDF may grant rights with respect to journal issues as a whole.
- The right to use all or parts of this article in future works of their own, such as lectures, press releases, reviews, textbooks, or reprint books.
- The authors affirm that the article has been neither copyrighted nor published, that it is not being submitted for publication elsewhere, and that if the work is officially sponsored, it has been released for open publication.
The only exception to the statements in the paragraph above is the following: If an article published in IJAHP contains copyrighted material, such as a teaching case, as an appendix, then the copyright (and all commercial rights) of such material remains with the original copyright holder.
CDF will receive permission for publication of copyrighted material in IJAHP. This permission is not transferable to third parties. Permission to make electronic and paper copies of part or all of the articles, including all computer files that are linked to the articles, for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage.
This permission does not apply to previously copyrighted material, such as teaching cases. In paper copies of the article, the copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date should be visible. To copy otherwise is permitted provided that a per-copy fee is paid.
To republish, to post on servers, or redistribute to lists requires that you post a link to the IJAHP article, which is available in open access delivery mode. Do not upload the article itself.
Authors are permitted to present a talk, based on a paper submitted to or accepted by IJAHP, at a conference where the paper would not be published in a copyrighted publication either before or after the conference and where the author did not assign copyright to the conference or related publisher.