Game Theory In Major League Baseball

Baseball is said to be America’s favorite pastime; fans love to watch, play, and follow the many statistics of baseball. Many Americans pay particular attention to Major League Baseball. If one were to ask a Major League Baseball player about their favorite player or team, they are likely to provide various statistics about that player/team. What many fans and players do not realize is that most, if not all, pitchers’ pitch selections are not fully optimized. An economic concept called game theory could prove to be an effective solution to improving pitcher performance. While economists and some sportswriters agree that game theory should be applied toward better pitch selection, fans of Major League Baseball find it to be unnecessary

Economists wholeheartedly believe game theory is the best approach to optimize pitch types thrown for each pitcher and they have the evidence to back their claim up. Sportswriters are less inclined to believe what economists believe. While there are benefits to be gained, the benefits are not as extreme as economists say and there is more to pitch selection than what game theory accounts for, including velocity, skill level, et cetera, according to Neil Paine. The difference in the potential advantage of utilizing game theory stems from using different statistics. Kovash and Levitt used OPS in their analysis, and Paine used his own creation, Nash Score, for his analysis. Matt Swartz, a sportswriter for ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight with a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, claimed in his research presentation at the 2013 Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Analytics Conference that OPS “is a pretty good metric, [but] it does underestimate the value of walks, which means it overestimates the value of non-fastballs.” Swartz also sees benefit in optimizing pitch selection with game theory, but reaches results not as extreme as Kovash and Levitt. Pitch optimization is individualized and complex,especially with game theory, which is one

They acknowledge the elevating rise in economics mixing in with Major League Baseball. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis popularized using economics; the resulting movie helped expand this reach. Peter Scharf, a long-time MLB fan, recognized in his blog post “The Baseball Economics Revolution” that economics has a long history with baseball and that general managers for MLB teams increasingly have a background in economics. While economics has been widely accepted among fans, game theory is only just now gaining any attention from fans, and the gaining is slow with many years yet before fans might find game theory useful for optimizing pitch selection. Scharf claims the reason for this sluggish growth in use among fans results from the complex nature of mingling game theory with baseball: “so many factors have to be taken into consideration for something as simple as where to pitch.” There are other analytics without the complexity of game theory already used; fans feel no need to use an economic concept that requires so much work. Scharf does agree with the basic conclusion of economists and sportswriters that pitches should be randomized and not predictable without the use of game