2.3 Moneyball: The Power of Sports Analytics

Quick Question

Suppose you are the General Manager of a baseball team, and you are selecting two players for your team. You have a budget of $1,500,000, and you have the choice between the following players:

Player Name
OBP SLG Salary
Eric Chavez 0.338 0.540 $1,400,000
Jeremy Giambi 0.391 0.450 $1,065,000
Frank Menechino 0.369 0.374 $295,000
Greg Myers 0.313 0.447 $800,000
Carlos Pena 0.361 0.500 $300,000

Given your budget and the player statistics, which two players would you select?

Exercise 1

 

Explanation

We would select Jeremy Giambi and Carlos Pena, since they give the highest contribution to Runs Scored.

We would not select Eric Chavez, since his salary consumes our entire budget, and although he has the highest SLG, there are players with better OBP.

We would not select Frank Menechino since even though he has a high OBP, his SLG is low.

We would not select Greg Myers since he is dominated by Carlos Pena in OBP and SLG, but has a much higher salary.