Premium
Application of the matching law to pitch selection in professional baseball
Author(s) -
Cox David J.,
Sosine Jacob,
Dallery Jesse
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of applied behavior analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1938-3703
pISSN - 0021-8855
DOI - 10.1002/jaba.381
Subject(s) - generality , selection (genetic algorithm) , context (archaeology) , psychology , league , matching (statistics) , social psychology , applied psychology , cognitive psychology , statistics , computer science , artificial intelligence , mathematics , biology , paleontology , physics , astronomy , psychotherapist
This study applied the generalized matching equation ( GME ) to pitch selection in professional baseball. The GME was fitted to the relation between pitch selection and hitter outcomes for five professional baseball pitchers during the 2014 Major League Baseball season. The GME described pitch selection well. Pitch allocation varied across different game contexts such as inning, count, and number of outs in a manner consistent with the GME . Finally, within games, bias decreased for four of the five pitchers and the sensitivity parameter increased for three of the five pitchers. The results extend the generality of the GME to multialternative natural sporting contexts, and demonstrate the influence of context on behavior in natural environments.