Professional Baseball League Research Articles

ANALYSIS OF FIELDER STARTS AND BENCH ABILITY ON AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL PLAYERS

The development of athletes or players depends on two aspects: nature and nurture. The former is the talent and qualification of the players themselves, while the latter is the training that consumes human, material and financial resources. Take professional baseball players as an example. Matching the talents of players and referring to the relevant starting rules of the professional baseball league, when the up-and-coming players are first discovered, focused training are used on them. By doing so, the value of the players would be effectively enhanced and the players are helped to seek a better way out. This can form a virtuous circle: the pellets get quality players, and the players get better results. That is to say, strengthening the training for the shortcomings of the players with the potential of the starting players can avoid unnecessary training and huge training expenses behind them, and greatly reduce the risk of career, so that the players have higher security in their short career, and get a win-win-win situation. This study is aimed at the schedule information of the American Baseball League teams. Through feature selection of data mining, this study analyzes the main relationships and key differences between starting player and bench player of second baseman and shortstop in League of Nations teams. It is found that the on base percentage and speed of the infielders is an important ability indicator for the starting position; whereas, the second baseman emphasizes on the attack and the shortstop focuses on fielding. This feature is verified by comparing the opinions of experts and commentators. Article visualizations:

An Athlete's Sense of Community as Responsibility for the Hometown: Perspective on Community-Based Professional Sport Organizations

In Japan, community-based professional sports organizations, which are based in a specific area referred to as a hometown, are increasing. This study focused on players from a team of professional independent Japanese baseball leagues and investigated how these players develop an “appropriate attitude for the hometown” and fostered a “sense of community as responsibility” (SOC-R), a widely discussed construct in community psychology. The purpose of this study was to clarify the antecedents and consequences of players' SOC-R for the hometown. Current study constructed the SOC-R model that has “passion for the team activity” and “pride in the team” as antecedents of SOC-R for the hometown, and “being a role model” and “maintaining a good relationship” as consequences. The results of structural equation modeling showed that “harmonious passion”, “obsessive passion”, and “pride” had a significant positive relationship with SOC-R, while SOC-R had a significantly positive influence on “being a role model” and “maintaining a good relationship”. As a result of multi-group analysis, it was suggested that the longer the player belongs to the team, the lower the influence on the SOC-R from the obsessive passion, while the higher the influence on the harmonious passion. These results contribute to the existing body of SOC-R and professional sports organization research, and may help sports managers better understand the psychological states of players from community-based professional sports teams.

A Little Girl, A Great War, A Baseball Triumph

A Little Girl, A Great War, A Baseball Triumph Ruth Hanford Morhard (bio) The year was 1946. Life in the United States was slowly returning to normal. The war in Europe had ended in May 1945. By September the War in the Pacific was over. Soldiers like my Dad were returning from World War II and reuniting with their eager families. More than five hundred had been Major League baseball players. Months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Major League Baseball had reached new heights of popularity. In Philadelphia’s Shibe Field, home of the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams crushed a ball into the right field speaker to lift his average to .406, winning the batting title and, unknown to him at the time, becoming the last Major Leaguer to hit over .400. In Cleveland’s League Park, Yankee centerfielder Joe DiMaggio set another record, hitting safely in his fifty-sixth consecutive game. At Fenway Park, forty-one-year-old Red Sox pitcher Lefty Grove got his three-hundredth career win. The war changed everything. Detroit’s Hall of Fame slugger “Hammerin” Hank Greenberg was one of the first to be drafted, giving up his $55,000 yearly salary for $21 per month Army pay and telling the Sporting News, “If there’s any last message to be given to the public, let it be that I’m going to be a good soldier.” ________ The Cleveland Indians’ Bob Feller had a family-related draft exemption. He was on his way to Chicago to discuss his 1942 contract when he heard the news of Pearl Harbor. Instead of negotiating a new contract, he told Indians General Manager Cy Slapnicka that he was enlisting in the Navy, giving up a $100,000 salary to become a Chief Petty Officer aboard the USS Alabama. Ted Williams enlisted in the Navy in May 1942, became a second lieutenant and a Marine fighter pilot, setting records for aerial gunnery. Warren Spahn fought in the Battle of the Bulge after pitching just one Major League game. Yogi Berra was a minor leaguer for the Norfolk Tars with a .396 batting average when he was drafted. He became a gunner’s mate and volunteered to pilot the rocket boats that led the landing craft on D-Day. [End Page 57] Team owners scrambled to find replacements for the hundreds of Major and Minor League players they lost. When New York Giants Manager Leo Durocher found he had only two regulars left on the team, he put himself in the lineup. A forty-six-year-old named Hod Lisanbee pitched for the Cincinnati Reds. Former prisoner of war Bert Shepard pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers with an artificial leg. One-armed outfielder Pete Gray was a St. Louis Brown. Former Red Sox slugger Jimmy Foxx came out of retirement to play for the Philadelphia Phillies. Women also played pro ball when Phillip K. Wrigley founded the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The war had changed everything for our small family, too. I was five years old when my Dad left, wrenched from his desk at the Travelers Insurance Company at thirty-six years of age, exchanging his well-worn pen for a dangerous rifle, his warm front porch for the frozen trenches of Alsace, his much-loved wife and child for the company of bloodied soldiers he’d never met. With my childish reasoning, I blamed my mother for his going, believing the bacon and eggs she’d cooked for breakfast the day of his physical were the reason he’d been classified I-A. When the officer asked what branch of the service he preferred, he said the Navy—so they promptly put him in the Army infantry and sent him to the front lines in France. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t stay with us. He’d been supporting the war, taking a second job making rifles at the Underwood Typewriter factory, and serving as an air raid warden. I remember him tapping at our kitchen window while my mother read me a book by candlelight. No lights were allowed, even for your own wife and daughter. He...

After International Tournaments: Spectator Attendance at Domestic Professional Baseball Games in Taiwan

Most people believe a good performance by a national team in an international sports tournament can enhance the domestic interest in that sport. By examining the case of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan, this paper investigates the follow-up influence of international tournaments on attendance at domestic games. It has been found that people react differently to tournaments held in and out of Taiwan and to mega and non-mega events. If the national team participates in a mega international tournament abroad, attendance at the CPBL games for the following season increases by 770 people or 24.3% per game. However, for non-mega international tournaments, the attendance effects differ based on how well the national team performs. If the national team cannot beat at least 78% of the teams in a non-mega tournament abroad or half of the teams in a tournament held in Taiwan, the average attendance may fall.

프로스포츠 이벤트 보조 서비스 지불의사 - KBO리그 관람객을 대상으로

The unmanageable nature of core sport products is known to encourage professional sport teams to improve the quality of ancillary services, denoting a variety of supplementary service components at sporting events. Using a discrete choice experimental approach, this study aims to provide feasible management implications for developing the most preferred ancillary service items at professional sporting events. With a sample of Korean professional baseball league spectators, this study laso intends to better understand how baseball fans indicate their willingness to pay for different ancillary service elements. Study results suggest that respondents show the greatest amount of willingness-to-pay values onh ealthier local food in addition to the traditional fried chicken sold at stadium concession facilities. Reuslts further indicate that spectators are willing to pay KR₩2,303 for the availability of female dancing squads fosr upporting their teams. Different management strategies are suggested to improve overall quality of ancillary services at professional sport events.

2014~2016시즌 한국프로야구 심판 합의판정 분석

This study aims to figure out if there is any significant difference depending on the subjects, time types of umpire agreed judgment calls made during the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Korean Professional Baseball leagues. Actual cases of judgment call were collected from the entire games over the past three years. There have been 109 calls out of 217 games in 2014, 408 calls from 720 games in 2015, and 709 calls out of 720 games in 2016. With Excel 2014, frequency analysis was carried out on the data and the results are as under.BR Firstly, it has been demonstrated that judgment calls were requested regardless of the time such as the beginning, the middle or the later part of games. Calls have a low chance of success in the middle and the end of games compared to the beginning. This means that bad calls were made more often in the beginning of games.BR second, out of the seven subjects which needed to make a judgment call in Korean baseball games, “out” or “safe” decisions were predominately requested at all the 2014, 2015 and 2016 seasons. It can be confirmed that the out or safe situation out of the seven call subjects has the greatest effect on games.BR In conclusion, the content of umpire agreed judgment calls made at Korean professional baseball games could be quantified through frequency analysis. These outcomes can be the basic data of various studies on judgment calls (video assistant referees system) to develop diverse subjects of further studies.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLAYER PERFORMANCE AND SALARY IN A PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL LEAGUE

This study aimed to investigate whether teams in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) are paying their players fairly and equitably based on their performance. Possible performance criteria of professional baseball players are gathered from past literature before subjecting these criteria to regression analysis to obtain criteria that are significant and their corresponding weights. The TOPSIS method is then used to calculate player performance value, and with Quadrant Analysis, relationship between player performance and salary is analyzed. These were used to project salary adjustment for these players for the coming season. Finally, to determine the fairness of salary adjustments, this study employed McNemar test to examine whether adjustments are made based on player performance. This study has found innings pitched (IP), earned run average (ERA) and walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) to be significant abilities in evaluating performance of pitchers, while for fielders, significant abilities for performance evaluation were batting average (BA), slugging average (SLG), hits (H) and on base percentage (OBP) . Based on these derived performance evaluation criteria, more than half of these players gave above average performance, yet their salary adjustments were not made accordingly nor were they made based on the above-mentioned criteria. Article visualizations:

The Relationships among Leisure Involvement, Organizational Commitment and Well-Being: Viewpoints from Sport Fans in Asia

Baseball spectating is one of the most popular leisure activities in Asia. Leisure participants with high well-being levels usually demonstrate loyal behavior to the teams they follow. Previous research indicates that professional sport fans are serious leisure participants and their participation has career qualities. The goal of this research was to investigate the relationship of leisure involvement with the well-being of professional sport fans and the possible mediating effect of organizational commitment, a career-related characteristic, on well-being. Some 406 fans of the Brother Elephants Baseball Team in Taiwan were surveyed. The results showed that leisure involvement positively and significantly influenced fans’ well-being and organizational commitment partially mediated the influence of leisure involvement on well-being. This study pioneers the integration of leisure involvement, well-being and organizational commitment in the context of a Professional Baseball League team within Asia. Implications and future research directions are presented.

한국프로야구의 산파, 이용일의 삶

한국프로야구의 산파, 이용일의 삶

Earning Like a Woman: Salaries versus Marginal Revenue Products in the AAGBPL and MLB: 1947-1952

This article exploits heretofore unexplored data from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that existed in the United States from 1943 to 1954 to measure and compare the economic loss to male and female professional baseball players. While female ballplayers earned a fraction of male salaries, they captured nearly twice as much of the revenues that they generated, indicating a smaller degree of exploitation. We hypothesize that in addition to the difference in structures of the two leagues, reservation wages explain the large difference in exploitation rates between the male and female players.

Sustainable Sport Scheduling Approach Considering Team Equity for the Korean Professional Baseball League

Since the Korea Baseball League (KBL) had nine teams, an odd number, in the 2013 season, one team was unable to compete at certain times in the rotation while the other eight teams played games. Therefore, it was necessary to consider several elements to generate an annual match schedule in terms of team equity. However, the annual match schedule created by the conventional method could not fully reflect the elements regarding team equity, and there were a great many complaints from teams and fans. As a result, applying an optimization technique was decided upon to derive an efficient annual match schedule for the 2014 season. All the required conditions for scheduling are formulated as one or more equations and several parameter values concerning team equity are calculated with the related equations. Due to the complicated scheduling conditions, a sequential solution approach is applied by dividing the overall planning horizon in three parts. The derived annual match schedule was used for the 2014 season after some modifications, and the staff of the KBL was satisfied with the performance of the proposed scheduling methodology. Currently, this sustainable scheduling methodology is still in use to generate an efficient annual match schedule for the KBL.

Can pitcher performance reveal game fixing in baseball? Developing a forensic analysis detection procedure

Gambling and game-fixing scandals have loomed over the international baseball world and a lack of sports ethics in baseball may lead to many problems. In this study I conducted a textual analysis of reports by prosecutors regarding a pitcher who was investigated but not indicted in 2009 after allegations of game fixing. Drawing upon the statistical records of the season's games for the pitcher that were contained in the prosecutor's reports and game-by-game records for each Chinese Professional Baseball League pitcher in the 2009 regular season, I used the change-point test and difference-in-differences techniques to identify anomalies in the pitcher's play. The results I obtained support information contained in the prosecutors' reports regarding the pitcher's actions. My model is confirmed as an appropriate method of applied behavior analysis for detecting corruption in baseball pitching performance.

Sensorimotor abilities predict on-field performance in professional baseball

Baseball players must be able to see and react in an instant, yet it is hotly debated whether superior performance is associated with superior sensorimotor abilities. In this study, we compare sensorimotor abilities, measured through 8 psychomotor tasks comprising the Nike Sensory Station assessment battery, and game statistics in a sample of 252 professional baseball players to evaluate the links between sensorimotor skills and on-field performance. For this purpose, we develop a series of Bayesian hierarchical latent variable models enabling us to compare statistics across professional baseball leagues. Within this framework, we find that sensorimotor abilities are significant predictors of on-base percentage, walk rate and strikeout rate, accounting for age, position, and league. We find no such relationship for either slugging percentage or fielder-independent pitching. The pattern of results suggests performance contributions from both visual-sensory and visual-motor abilities and indicates that sensorimotor screenings may be useful for player scouting.

Performance Evaluation of Teams in Chinese Professional Baseball League

In this article, a performance evaluation of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) was conducted from a human resources (HR) perspective. Two important aspects were included: (1) a comprehensive evaluation of the competition performance of the professional baseball teams in international games and regular season games; and (2) the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and “two-stage” methodologies, which were employed to process truncated data to resolve the factors that affect the efficiency of the decision-making unit (DMU). By applying DEA and truncated regression analysis with bootstrapping, the performances of CPBL teams in games of different intensities were investigated. The number of foreign coaches and native players both were the key factors to affect the competitive efficiency of CPBL teams, and the Uni President 7-ELEVEN Lions had the best performance efficiency team. This interdisciplinary investigation provided the most appropriate references and recommendations for professional baseball teams on HR management so that baseball fans' expectations are met.

Player Contracts and Player Agent Systems in the Korean Professional Baseball League

Player Contracts and Player Agent Systems in the Korean Professional Baseball League

Application of Grey Theory in the Construction of Impact Criteria and Prediction Model of Players’ Salary Structure

Salaries of professional players are usually determined prior to the execution of the responsibilities assigned by the organizations and are often based on the expected future performance of these players as derived from their past achievement. The study first identifies criteria that would affect players’ salaries through literature reviews and then utilizes grey relational analysis (GRA) and grey prediction model to calculate weights of salary impact criteria, players’ annual performance index, and salary prediction for the coming year. The performance data of players from the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) are used in this study. The results are as follows: (i) CPBL teams do refer to players’ past performance records and future performance prediction when deciding on their salaries and (ii) future performance prediction must be made using at least a 3-year data set. The proposed prediction model is able to effectively provide relevant and useful information to the CPBL teams’ management during players’ salary adjustment.

Structural changes and competitive balance in the korean professional baseball league

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of structural changes on competitive balance in the Korean Professional Baseball League (KPBL). The study used standard deviation of winning percentages (SDWP) and Gini coefficient to measure competitive balance in the KPBL. Both measures were used as dependent variables in the model. The independent variables were the effect of free agency, amateur draft, the introduction of foreign players, a number of games in a regular season, and short-term shock due to an expansion of the league. The data consist of all regular seasons in the KPBL (1982-2016). The results of this styudy showed that only free agency and the number of games each team plays in a regular season were statistically significant in both SDWP and Gini models. The study found a significant decrease in standard deviation of winning percentages (SDWP) and Gini coefficient after the introduction of free agency in the KPBL. Also, competitive balance was increased as the number of games each team plays increase. However, this study did not found other structural changes to affect competitive balance in the KPBL. It may be due to the limited number of sample size based on the relatively short history of the KPBL(35 years). Since competitive balance is important for both the sport league and sport fans, baseball teams and the league should focus on maintaining and improving competitive balance in the KPBL.

A deep learning-based sports player evaluation model based on game statistics and news articles

Player evaluation is a key component of the question-answering (QA) system in sports. Since existing player evaluation methods heavily rely on game statistics, they cannot capture the qualitative impact of each player during a game, which can be exploited using news articles after the game. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based player evaluation model by combining both quantitative game statistics and the qualitative analyses provided by news articles. Players are classified as positive or negative based on their performance during certain periods, and news articles in the same period are annotated using the player's class. Then, the relationship between news articles and the annotated polarity is investigated by a deep neural network, which can deal with the high dimensionality of the text data. Since there is no explicit polarity label for news articles, we use the change in game statistics in target periods to annotate related sentences. The proposed system is applied to a Korean professional baseball league (KBO) and it is shown to be capable of understanding the sentence polarity of news articles on player performances.

프로야구구단 레플리카 구매자의 구매결정요인이 브랜드자산 및 재구매 의사간의 관계

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of purchasing determinants of professional baseball teams’ replica purchasers upon brand asset and repurchasing intention. The sample of this study was collected by using convenience sampling method and 186(93%) questionnaires from 2016 professional baseball league’s spectators who have replica were used for data analysis. The data were analysed by using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 18.0. The results are as follows: Firstly, brand, quality and purchasing place among purchasing determinants had a significant effect on awareness. Secondly, brand, quality and purchasing place among purchasing determinants had a significant effect on image. Thirdly, brand, quality and purchasing place among purchasing determinants had a significant effect on repurchasing intention. Fourthly, brand asset had a significant effect on repurchasing intention.

Examining the antecedents of sport team brand equity: A dual-identification perspective

Although the practice of building brand equity in the context of professional sport teams is popular, the formation of sport team brand equity in the sport marketing literature is still relatively unknown and incompletely understood. In this study, the authors propose a dual-identification model to examine the formation of sport team brand equity in an Asia-based professional team sport setting. Baseball fans (N=548) of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in Taiwan participated in the self-administered survey. A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model analysis revealed that marketplace characteristics (including group experience, salient experience, team history, and fan rituals) and brand-identified-related factors (including self-congruity and team brand prestige) were significantly related to identification with sport team and identification with sport team brand, respectively. In turn, both identification with sport team and identification with sport team brand were significant predictors of sport team brand equity. These findings highlight the importance of studying a dual-identification model in order to understand how sport team brand equity forms and suggest implications for sport team managers.