Research Reports from the Department of Operations
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
6-1-1971
Abstract
This study examines baseball as a stochastic system, developing quantitative measures to evaluate player performance as batters and fielders. These measures offer significant advantages over traditional indices such as batting average, fielding average, and slugging percentage. The research also provides a prototype for creating performance metrics applicable in business, social, and governmental contexts. The study addresses the strategic problem of determining an optimal batting order by formulating it as a cubic assignment problem solvable via dynamic programming. A simplified version of baseball is defined to generate representative performance data. A computer program, running on an RCA Spectra 70/45 in time-sharing mode, was developed to solve the batting order problem using these data-driven methodologies.
Keywords
Operations research, Baseball--Evaluation, Stochastic processes, Mathematical models
Publication Title
Technical Memorandums from the Department of Operations, School of Management, Case Western Reserve University
Issue
Technical memorandum no. 232
Rights
This work is in the public domain and may be freely downloaded for personal or academic use
Recommended Citation
Brown, Melvin, "A Systems Approach to Performance Evaluation in Baseball" (1971). Research Reports from the Department of Operations. 587.
https://commons.case.edu/wsom-ops-reports/587