Abstract
Recent measurement technologies enable us to analyze baseball at higher levels of complexity. There are, however, still many unclear points around pitching strategy. There are two elements that make it difficult to measure the effect of a pitching strategy. First, most public datasets do not include location data where the catcher demands a ball, which is essential information to obtain the battery’s intent. Second, there are many confounders associated with pitching/batting results when evaluating pitching strategy. We here clarify the effect of pitching attempts to a specific location, e.g., inside or outside. We employ a causal inference framework called stratified analysis using a propensity score to evaluate the effects while removing the effect of confounding factors. We use a pitch-by-pitch dataset of Japanese professional baseball games held in 2014–2019, which includes location data where the catcher demands a ball. The results reveal that an outside pitching attempt is more effective than an inside one to minimize allowed run average. In addition, the stratified analysis shows that the outside pitching attempt is effective regardless of the magnitude of the estimated batter’s ability, and the proportion of pitched inside for pitcher/batter. Our analysis provides practical insights into selecting a pitching strategy to minimize allowed runs.
Funding source: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Award Identifier / Grant number: 19H04941 and 20H04075
Funding source: Precursory Research for Embryonic Science and Technology
Award Identifier / Grant number: JPMJPR20CA
Acknowledgments
The data was provided by Delta Inc.
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Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers 19H04941 and 20H04075) and JST PRESTO (JPMJPR20CA).
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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