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On the Decision to Take a Pitch

Operations Research/Industrial Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712
ebickel{at}mail.utexas.edu

Baseball is a highly strategic game, with decisions being made almost continuously. In this paper, we analyze the decision to have the batter take a pitch, which means that he does not swing at the pitch under any circumstances—even if it is easily hittable. Why would a batter do this? Using decision-theoretic reasoning, we determine under what circumstances such a decision is good. We find that in some cases, taking pitches deterministically dominates not taking.

Key Words: decision analysis applications; baseball strategy; decision analysis education
History: Received on March 16, 2009. Accepted on April 27, 2009.

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