An analytic hierarchy approach to major-league baseball offensive performance ratings

In recent years, the analysis of major league baseball players’ statistics has been gaining much popularity, from baseball executives to the average fan. This paper analyzes the overall offensive performance of major league players through the combination of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the individual players’ offensive statistics (batting average, runs, doubles, triples, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, and walks). Two new extensions to the absolute measurement mode of the AHP are introduced. First, range bases determined by the means and standard deviations of the different offensive statistics are applied as the alternative nodes. This permits the comparison of all major league players under the same criteria using statistics. Second, curve-fitting (second-order best fit) techniques are applied to the cut-off points for the synthesis of allow each data point (each player’s individual offensive statistic) to receive a unique score in the AHP. The result is an overall score and ranking for each major league player according to his offensive performance during the 1991 major league baseball season.