Sports Management Commons^™

The Impact Of International Baseball Players On Mlb Organizations: An Analysis Of Performance, Attendance, Revenue, And Valuation, 2012-2022, Aidan Booth

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the impact of international baseball players on MLB organizations. The paper uses the Sean Lahman Database focusing on team-wide statistics including performance metrics, winning percentage, and attendance. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression model, the paper examines the effect of share of foreign-born players on team success, attendance, revenue, and valuation. The dataset controls for a number of variables throughout these regressions including payroll, population, stadium capacity, number of all stars on each team, and the number of competing professional sports teams in the metropolitan area in order to isolate the effect of foreign-born players on …

An Analysis Of Salary Difference For Left-Handed Pitchers, Jarrett Korson

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines whether there is a difference in salary for left-handed pitchers in Major League Baseball. I review prior research regarding the valuation of MLB pitchers, salary discrimination in baseball, and left-handed pitchers to shape my methodology. Using Sean Lahman’s Baseball Database, I utilize various regression models to analyze effects on salary. Variables are transformed into cumulative, per 9- inning values and left-handed interaction variables are created to observe any difference in salary experienced only by left-handers. The models show that for variables with a statistically significant effect on salary, left-handers experience a statistically significant effect on salary above …

Modeling The Performance-Based Compensation Of Mlb Catchers, William Deforest

CMC Senior Theses

How professional baseball players are compensated for their on-field performance and contribution to winning baseball games has been studied many times by baseball analysts, yet no real attempt has been made to focus solely on the catcher position. As one of the most demanding and specialized positions in the game, a talented catcher is vital to a team’s success. This paper attempts to utilize Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and Offensive Runs Above Average (OFF), leading statistics that use Statcast data to measure defensive and offensive productivity, to determine which area of catcher defense is the greatest differentiator between elite defensive …

Ua19/16/2 Baseball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Archives Records

Press releases and game statistics for WKU baseball team in 2023.

The Houston Astros' Cheating Scandal: A Case Study On Crisis Communication In Sports, Wendy Edouard

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In January 2020, the Houston Astros organization was accused of cheating during the 2017 and 2018 baseball seasons. In 2017, the Astros had also won the World Series, thereby offsetting a sports scandal which dominated media coverage for several months. Owner of the Houston Astros, Jim Crane and his players released a statement to the press, a month after the investigation was concluded by the Major League Baseball organization. The investigation concluded that the Astros, in fact, had been stealing pitching signs from opposing teams and using technology to communicate signs to their pitcher. Crane’s response (relying primarily on shift …

Winning Investment: The Strategic Implications Of The Growth Of Sabermetrics In Japanese Baseball, David Trent Pagliarini

Senior Theses

This thesis examines Japanese baseball and how the use of analytics and statistical research has been implemented into Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), compared to its North American counterpart, Major League Baseball (MLB). Due to the large financial implications of the MLB, teams have fully adopted the use of advanced metrics to find competitive disparities and advantages in roster construction, game strategies, and player development. Because of the long history attached to baseball in Japan, many cultural differences have adapted the game and recently slowed the growth of sabermetrics. While the NPB is beginning to understand the competitive value that analytics …

Ua102 Alan Francis Sports Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Baseball and basketball score books created by Alan Francis for WKU men's and women's basketball, baseball and the Kentucky girls high school sweet sixteen tournaments.

Ua19/16/2 Baseball Press Releases, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Archives Records

Press releases, photos and game statistics for WKU baseball team in 2021.

Antitrust Changeup: How A Single Antitrust Reform Could Be A Home Run For Minor League Baseball Players, Jeremy Ulm

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to protect competition in the marketplace. Federal antitrust law has developed to prevent businesses from exerting unfair power on their employees and customers. Specifically, the Sherman Act prevents competitors from reaching unreasonable agreements amongst themselves and from monopolizing markets. However, not all industries have these protections.

Historically, federal antitrust law has not governed the “Business of Baseball.” The Supreme Court had the opportunity to apply antitrust law to baseball in Federal Baseball Club, Incorporated v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs; however, the Court held that the Business of Baseball was not …

The Data Revolution: An Examination Of The Use Of Scouting And Analytics In Major League Baseball Front Offices, Eleanor Weller

Honors Theses

The area of study for this thesis is the use and optimization of the sub-departments within the larger baseball operations department in Major League Baseball front offices. The research is divided into the history of the two major units—scouting and analytics. This background is followed by an investigation of the balance between them. Information for this analysis was obtained through secondary research, primarily articles for online journals and previously conducted interviews with front office personnel. I have also included some of my own work, which was completed during the summer of 2019. The findings of the analysis are that the …

Payroll Disparity Among Major League Baseball Teams: Building A Competitive Team Despite Limited Resources, Sarah Holtschneider

Senior Honors Theses

There has been an inequality in payroll among Major League Baseball teams for many years that became increasingly evident in the late 1990s. Revenue disparities among teams cause a competitive imbalance for the league and make it harder for small-market teams to compete with large-market teams with much higher payrolls. MLB has attempted to alleviate this disparity, but the implementation of revenue sharing and the competitive balance tax alone is not enough for small-market clubs to build a competitive team. There are a number of ways that small-market clubs can build a competitive team despite limited resources, including employing the …

The Perfect Game: An Ecological Systems Approach To The Influences Of Elite Youth And High School Baseball Socialization, Max Klein, Charles Macaulay, Joseph Cooper

Journal of Athlete Development and Experience

The purpose of this study was to examine the elite youth and high school baseball socialization process as a whole and the role of professionalization and corporatization in this process. The unique nature of baseball’s development model in the United States (U.S.), through a dual-track feeder system (college or minor leagues) allows for a wide-range of challenges and sociological factors to influence elite youth and high school prospects. Understanding players’ experiences exposes these challenges and sociological factors. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four former elite youth and high school baseball players, one parent of a player, two coaches, and two …

Important Factors Influencing Attendance At Northwoods League Games, Ryan Eiche

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the importance of various factors as they related to attendance at Northwoods League baseball games. This league was an ideal fit for the study as little research has been conducted on this level of baseball. A survey was sent out via the Facebook page of the Lakeshore Chinooks to gather responses from fans on what factors encouraged attendance. Fans were asked to then rate how important each factor was on a five-point sliding scale. The research revealed that situational factors such as convenience, day and time, and weather of the game were …

Evaluating An Mlb General Manager’S Bang For Their Buck, Devin Mathura

Honors College Theses

With my passion for baseball, I decided to calculate the value of each player on an MLB active roster and determine whether they are underpaid or overpaid. I then used that information to evaluate and rank how efficient each MLB general manager utilizes their money on players. With the luxury tax becoming more of an issue for teams with high payrolls, there has been an emphasis on general managers to construct a team that will be highly competitive at a reasonably low price. In my report, I imported data that reflected the position for each player as well as their …

Location, Location, Location: Analyzing The Impact Of Pitch Command On At-Bat Outcomes In Major League Baseball, Noah Hilton

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In baseball, runs are considered the currency of the game. As a result, the foremost value of pitchers to their respective teams comes in the form of run prevention and keeping the opposing offense off the scoreboard as much as possible. While Major League Baseball has taken steps to better evaluate the run prevention skills of pitchers independent of their defensive teammates, new radar technology has made possible the research of specific skills related to a pitcher’s repertoire of offerings. In this article, the author first examines the relationship between various pitch characteristics — velocity, movement, and location — and …

Offensive Explosion: An Analysis Of Trends In Hitting Production In Major League Baseball, Laura M. Schreck, Eric J. Sickles

Sport Management

2014 was a record year for pitchers followed by an abrupt reversal in trends with offensive numbers increasing steadily in 2015 and 2016, culminating with a record-setting year for hitters in 2017. This article explores similar offensive explosions throughout the history of Major League Baseball in order to draw parallels to the current extraordinary increase in offense. Evidence of this increase is provided by analyzing the trends of ten separate statistical categories, as well as the statistical trends of the top forty hitters, and twenty pitchers in Major League Baseball. This analysis and research provides the context for discussing possible …

Developing Computer Vision Technology To Automate Pitch Analysis In Baseball., Mahdi Moalla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lokator is a baseball training system designed to document pitch location while teaching pitch command, selection and sequencing. It is composed of a pitching target and a smartphone app. The target is divided into a set of zones to identify the pitch location. The main limitation of the current system is its reliance on the user's feedback. After each throw, the pitcher or the coach needs to identify and report the target's zone that was hit by the ball by just relying on the naked eye. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the possibility of using computer vision …

Management In Major League Baseball: How General Managers Succeed And Fail Using Statistics To Build Winning Franchises, Sam Baughman

CMC Senior Theses

Baseball fans discuss and remember the heroics of Major League Baseball players and managers. However, team executives operate away from the crowds, in the front office to draft, trade for, and sign talented players and managers to construct successful teams. The intent of this thesis is to first rank and analyze these general managers and presidents of baseball operations through finance and baseball statistics. Then, I will examine team statistics to determine what statistics correlate to winning. Two of the general managers, Theo Epstein and Dan O’Dowd, will then be examined more thoroughly to determine how their decisions impacted their …

Height, Weight, And Durability In Major League Baseball, Joshua Yeager

CMC Senior Theses

Using data from the 2000-2016 Major League Baseball seasons, this paper looks at the determinants of durability amongst baseball athletes, durability is measured in games played for batters and innings pitched for pitchers, with a particular focus on height and weight. This paper finds evidence that lighter, shorter batters play significantly more games than taller, heavier batters. Additionally, amongst pitchers, there is only circumstantial evidence that height and weight are important determining factors of player durability. Finally, I find that starting pitchers increase the likelihood of becoming injured in the regular season by 10.3% and 21.8% if their hits per …

Does The Sport Industry Change The Game For Job Satisfaction?: A Case Of Triple-A Ticket Office Employees, Kaylah R. Quilty

Sport Management Undergraduate

Business success continues to be influenced by employee job satisfaction because satisfied employees are more likely to produce quality work, stay motivated, and continue with the organization for a longer period of time. The research into job satisfaction has only gone as far as the business industry but has not yet reached the sport industry. Using the sport of baseball, interviews with ten Triple-A, International League ticket office employees uncovered there are many commonalities between the sport and business industries in terms of factors that influence job satisfaction. Therefore, sport organizations can likely utilize existing research in this area to …

Implementation And Validation Of A Probabilistic Open Source Baseball Engine (Posbe): Modeling Hitters And Pitchers, Rhett Tracy Schaefer

Open Access Theses

This manuscript details the implementation and validation of an open source probabilistic baseball engine (POSBE) that focuses on the hitter and pitcher model of the simulation. The simulation produced outcomes that parallel those observed in actual professional Major League Baseball games. The observed data were taken from the nineteen games played between the New York Yankees (NYY) and Boston Red Sox (BOS) during the 2015 season. The potential hitter/pitcher outcomes of interest were singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, walks, hit-by-pitch, and strikeouts. The nineteen game series was simulated 1000 times, resulting in a total of 19,000 simulations. The eighteen hitters and …

Major League Baseball: What Really Puts Fans In The Stands?, Ladd Kochman

Ladd Kochman

Attendance at Major League Baseball games has long been thought to be a function of the uncertainty of a game's outcome. Optimal uncertainty and, in turn, maximal attendance are said to occur when there is a 60% chance that the home team will win. This study reexamined the data used by past researchers and found that the betting odds associated with a 60% probability of winning (7-8) are more consistent with outcome certainty than with the accepted conclusion of outcome uncertainty. One explanation for the counterintuitive finding may be that it simply costs too much to attend a MLB game …

Mlb Franchises & Predictors Of Valuation, Danielle Marie Willett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There have been many studies done, for MLB, regarding multiple economic factors, yet there is previous research done to investigate the predictors a team's valuation. This study aims to investigate what, if any, of certain predictor variables effect the valuation of an MLB franchise over a five year span, beginning in 2008. The study includes 29 MLB franchises and looks at secondary fiscal and performance data throughout the five year span. The results of a regression analysis concluded that three predictor variables, market size, average ticket price, and salary expense, were significant indicators of valuation while the remainder of the …

Job Satisfaction In Minor League Baseball, Justice L. Hoyt

Sport Management Undergraduate

Every individual in the sport industry spends a substantial amount of time at work. Hence the satisfaction of an individual’s job is important. The purpose of this study was to look at the satisfaction levels of full time minor league baseball employees in the International League. This study was the first study in the field of minor league baseball which tried to determine if the satisfaction levels were worth the demand of the work. It is known across the workforce that the more time demanding a job is the less freedom you have for family and leisure. This study was …

Understanding Season Ticket Holders’ Buying Behaviors, Stephen M. Castro Jr.

Sport Management Undergraduate

Increasing the average dollar spent from fans is important for an organizations’ bottom line. Existing literature focuses on general attendance versus the unique population of season ticket holders. Having already invested fans consume more, due to higher attendance, can increase the bottom line. By having the Rochester Red Wing’s season ticket holders fill out a survey it will uncover their buying behaviors and what affects their attendance. The results show aroma is how fans decide what concessions to buy and new merchandise is how fans decide what merchandise to buy.

The Role Of A Player Development System In Major League Baseball, Kyle Conklin

Sport Management Undergraduate

This paper looks at the role of a player development system and the possible paths to success in Major League Baseball (MLB). The study looked at rookie players in the MLB to see if the path of their journey to the major leagues has an influence on their success as a rookie. Two paths were studied, those who played collegiately and those who went through the minor leagues straight from high school. This study used quantitative data to analyze the differences in player’s performance as rookies through statistics such as batting average and on-base percentage for hitters and winning percentage …

Major League Baseball's Antitrust Exemption And The Impact Of The Curt Flood Act, Gina Scalzo

Senior Honors Theses

For many years, professional baseball has enjoyed a privileged antitrust exemption apart from other professional sports. With the passing of the Curt Flood Act in 1998 this exemption was removed; however, the act may not be as influential as it seems. Court rulings were prominent in initiating and maintaining the antitrust exemption for professional baseball. These include the Supreme Court Trilogy, especially the case of Curt Flood, a baseball player who fought against the reserve clause system which limited his and other players’ employment options. Collective bargaining as well as arbitration became dominant in professional baseball labor relations under the …

2009 Nsu Sharks Baseball Media Guide, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Athletics Sports Programs and Media Guides

No abstract provided.

2008 Nsu Athletics Summer Camps, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Athletics Sports Programs and Media Guides

No abstract provided.

2008 Nsu Sharks Baseball Media Guide, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Athletics Sports Programs and Media Guides

No abstract provided.