2017 Volume 62 Issue 1 Pages 289-295
Baseball is a thriving sport in Japanese high schools. However, there have been demands to shorten the instructional time for school extracurricular activities, resulting in a need to increase the effectiveness of such instruction. The present study was designed to examine the effects of 3 elements of team strength in high school baseball—pitching strength, batting strength, and defensive strength—on the outcome of a game. The materials used for analysis were the records of all of the 390 games and 780 teams involved in the National High School Baseball Championship from 2008 to 2015. Pitching strength, batting strength, and defensive strength were calculated using Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), On-base Plus Slugging (OPS), and Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER), respectively. Logistic regression analysis (forced entry method) was conducted on the game outcome as the dependent variable and team FIP, team OPS, and DER as the independent variables. This analysis showed that the team FIP (odds ratio 0.80, 95% confidence interval 0.74—0.86), team OPS (odds ratio 8145, 95% confidence interval 1957—33898), and DER (odds ratio 5699019, 95% confidence interval 341274—95169408) were significantly associated with the outcome of the game. An assessment of the Wald statistic, which indicates the contribution rate of the dependent variables, showed that batting strength had the strongest effect on game outcome, followed by defensive strength. Compared to batting and defensive strength, pitching strength appeared to have only a small influence on game outcome. Therefore, for efficient improvement of team strength, it is considered that resources should be directed towards improving batting and defensive strength over pitching strength.
