Pitch it to Me: The Determinants of a Professional Baseball Pitcher’s Salary

The professional sports industry is one of the most engaging and entertaining markets in the United States. Specifically, Major League Baseball is unique in the sense that it is America’s pastime and oldest American sport. Professional baseball teams are businesses that trade commodities in the form of baseball players. Unlike publicly traded stocks, baseball players are not traded on an exchange. So, what determines the “price” of professional baseball players? More specifically, what determines the price of professional pitchers in the MLB? My study reveals that pitching is an extremely subjective aspect of baseball and there is no one statistic that can be used to forecast a pitcher’s salary. Based on my research and analysis, I investigate which performance metrics are the most important in determining a professional pitcher’s salary and if these metrics can ultimately be used to forecast future pitchers’ salaries in order for baseball franchises to acquire undervalued pitchers