Economics

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The Effects of Race and Role Specialization on Pitcher Salary Equations
(2011) Bailey, Robert V.; Kontorovich, Vladimir
This study investigates the effects of specialized pitching roles and race on the formation of pitcher salaries in Major League Baseball. It begins with a review of past related studies noting inspirations to this study. The first of these works investigates the effect of race on position player salaries and the other investigates the effect of specialized pitching roles on pitcher salaries. The first concludes that race does not influence position player compensation where the second concludes that pitcher type does contribute to the formation of pitcher salaries. This study combines both efforts to investigate the effect of race interacted with pitcher types on pitcher salary. This study models pitcher salary using a fixed effects approach controlling for variations due to team differences. Seven-hundred fifty observations were collected consisting of true free agent pitchers who signed contracts after a full season’s worth of Major League performance. Each observation is categorized as a white, black, Hispanic, or Asian starter, reliever, or closer. This study concludes that pitcher type and race influence how a pitcher is compensated for his performance and that pitcher type and race influence pitcher compensation independent of performance.