Performance Evaluations of Professional Baseball Players using DEA/OERA

The OERA(Offensive Earned-Run Average) is a methodology for the performance evaluation of baseball players, which is based on a well- known Markov chain model. The DEA(Data Envelopment Analysis) is an LP-based evaluation technique for performance analysis of DMUs (Decision Making Units), whose production activities are characterized by multiple inputs and outputs. In this paper, the performances of Korean professional baseball players are analytically evaluated using both OERA and DEA methods. We discuss methodological strengths and drawbacks of two kinds of baseball evaluation techniques, by comparing both results. Finally to overcome the shortcomings of both methods, we develop a new analytical approach for baseball evaluation by combining OERA with DEA.