Date of Award

Spring 2021

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Advisor(s)

Chaitra Nagaraja

Abstract

In Major League Baseball, sabermetrics has affected the way players, managers, and front offices conduct business to put a winning product on the field. Assessing the sabermetrics revolution in baseball by considering front office philosophies and the way these front offices value ballplayers will shed insight into the scope of the movement and its implications on roster building and competitive balance in the MLB. With the absence of a salary cap in baseball, teams must meet the budget limitations set by ownership and field a capable team with the given resources. This paper uses regression strategies to find the optimal fund allocation of MLB teams for the years 2015-2019 in order to evaluate which positions teams derive the most value from. Additionally, it is important to consider league parity in the years before, during, and after the sabermetric revolution to point out whether the increased prevalence of advanced metrics has leveled the playing field or given another advantage to the wealthiest teams. After running the optimization model, starting pitching is the most important position to invest in, followed by center field, catcher, and second base; first base, third base, and shortstop all received the lowest possible allocations. Finally, four of the five World Series winners in the five years were in the top 15 of the entire league in terms of best allocated teams.

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