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Estimating Fielding Ability in Baseball Players Over Time

Author

Listed:
  • Piette James

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Jensen Shane T.

    (University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

Quantitative evaluation of fielding ability in baseball has been an ongoing challenge for statisticians. Detailed recording of ball-in-play data in recent years has spurred the development of sophisticated fielding models. Foremost among these approaches, Jensen et al. (2009) used a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate spatial fielding curves for individual players. These previous efforts have not addressed evolution in a player’s fielding ability over time. We expand the work of Jensen et al. (2009) to model the fielding ability of individual players over multiple seasons. Several different models are implemented and compared via posterior predictive validation on hold-out data. Among our choices, we find that a model which imposes shrinkage towards an age-specific average gives the best performance. Our temporal models allow us to delineate the performance of a fielder on a season-to-season basis versus their entire career.

Suggested Citation

  • Piette James & Jensen Shane T., 2012. "Estimating Fielding Ability in Baseball Players Over Time," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-36, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:8:y:2012:i:3:n:7
    DOI: 10.1515/1559-0410.1463
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Kaplan David, 2008. "Univariate and Multivariate Autoregressive Time Series Models of Offensive Baseball Performance: 1901-2005," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 1-23, July.
    2. Null Brad, 2009. "Modeling Baseball Player Ability with a Nested Dirichlet Distribution," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-38, May.
    3. Kalist David E & Spurr Stephen J, 2006. "Baseball Errors," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 1-22, October.
    4. Reich, Brian J. & Hodges, James S. & Carlin, Bradley P. & Reich, Adam M., 2006. "A Spatial Analysis of Basketball Shot Chart Data," The American Statistician, American Statistical Association, vol. 60, pages 3-12, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Phillips Andrew J. K., 2014. "Uncovering Formula One driver performances from 1950 to 2013 by adjusting for team and competition effects," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 261-278, June.
    2. Yurko Ronald & Ventura Samuel & Horowitz Maksim, 2019. "nflWAR: a reproducible method for offensive player evaluation in football," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 163-183, September.

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