Atmospheric Science Program, Department of Mathematical Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Jan 13;16(1):e0244941. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244941. eCollection 2021.
Financial advisors often emphasize asset diversification as a means of limiting losses from investments that perform unexpectedly poorly over a particular time period. One might expect that this perceived wisdom could apply in another high stakes arena-professional baseball-where player salaries comprise a substantial portion of a team's operational costs, year-to-year player performance is highly variable, and injuries can occur at any time. These attributes are particularly true in the case of the starting pitching staffs of professional baseball teams. Accordingly, this study analyzes starting pitcher performance and financial data from all Major League Baseball teams for the period 1985-2016 to determine whether the standard investment advice is applicable in this context, understanding that the time horizon for success for an investor and a baseball team may be distinct. A multiple logistic regression model of playoff qualification probability, based on realized pitcher performance, measures of luck, and starting pitcher staff salary diversification is used to address this question. A further stratification is conducted to determine whether there are differences in strategy for teams with allocated financial resources that are above or below league average. We find that teams with above average resources increase their post-season qualification probability by focusing their salary funds on a relative few starting pitchers rather than diversifying that investment across the staff. Second, we find that pitcher performance must align with that investment in order for the team to have a high qualification probability. Third, the influence of luck is not negligible, but those teams that allocate more overall funds to their pitching are more resilient to bad luck. Thus, poorly resourced teams, who are generally unable to bid for pitchers at the highest salary levels, must adopt alternative strategies to maintain their competitiveness.
财务顾问经常强调资产多元化，作为限制在特定时间段内投资表现不佳的损失的一种手段。人们可能会认为，这种被认为是明智的做法可以适用于另一个高风险的领域——职业棒球领域，在这个领域，球员薪酬占球队运营成本的很大一部分，球员的表现每年都有很大的变化，而且随时都可能受伤。这些特点在职业棒球队的首发投手阵容中尤为明显。因此，本研究分析了 1985 年至 2016 年期间所有大联盟棒球队的首发投手表现和财务数据，以确定标准的投资建议在这种情况下是否适用，因为投资者和棒球队的成功时间可能不同。一个基于实际投手表现、运气衡量标准和首发投手人员薪酬多元化的季后赛资格概率的多元逻辑回归模型被用来解决这个问题。进一步进行了细分，以确定在财务资源分配高于或低于联盟平均水平的球队之间是否存在策略上的差异。我们发现，资源高于平均水平的球队通过将薪酬资金集中在相对较少的首发投手上，而不是在整个投手队伍中分散投资，从而提高了季后赛资格的概率。其次，我们发现，只有当球队的投手表现与这种投资相匹配时，球队才有很高的资格概率。第三，运气的影响不可忽视，但那些将更多总资金分配给投手的球队对运气不佳的抵抗力更强。因此，资源匮乏的球队，通常无法以最高薪酬水平竞标投手，必须采取替代策略来保持竞争力。
