Who's on first-with probability 0.4

Abstract In this paper, a model using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is proposed to rank the players of an existing professional baseball team in preparation for the expansion draft. This model was developed in collaboration with the San Diego Padres. In this paper, the AHP tree is displayed, the actual pairwise comparisons of the AHP are shown, the ranking of the 43 players is presented and insight into the development of the AHP tree and the pairwise comparisons is discussed. The paper concludes with an analysis of the results of this study. Scope and purpose In 1996, each major league baseball team spent between $15 million and $52 million in player salaries (in 1998, several teams had over $65 million in team salaries). Moreover, in 1998, major league baseball expanded by 2 teams. The expansion teams staffed their teams by selecting players in the expansion draft that was held in November 1997, signing free agents and selecting players in the high school and college draft. Each expansion team’s salary in 1998 exceeded $26 million. Although current practice in major league baseball is to make many decisions by the ‘gut-feel’ of the team’s management, with so much money involved, better decision-making procedures should be of use to these organizations. One such decision model is described in this paper. This model, which was developed in collaboration with the San Diego Padres, ranked the 43 Padres eligible to be selected in the expansion draft. The Padres then decided which 15 players to protect on the first round of the expansion draft; these 15 protected players could not be selected by an expansion team. The results described in this paper showed that this model was an excellent predictor of the players the Padres actually decided to protect in the expansion draft. In 1998, the year after the expansion draft, the Padres won the National League championship for only the second time in their history. The only other time the Padres won the National League championship was 1984. In 1997, the Padres did not qualify for the playoffs.