This article investigates the effect of baseball’s designated hitter rule on the number of hit batsmen, with a focus on individual pitchers. Researchers have debated the rule’s incentives for pitchers and its impact on hit batsmen based on aggregate and cross-section statistics: They treat pitchers as a group. This article argues that individual pitchers are concerned with their reputation in the baseball community, and that they do not necessarily respond to the rule change by throwing at batters. Analyses of performance data of individual pitchers in a Japanese baseball league indicate that the rule did not prompt their behavioral change.
Bradbury, J.C., & Drinen, D.J. ( 2006). The designated hitter, moral hazard, and hit batters: New evidence from game-level data. Journal of Sports Economics , 7, 319-329.
2.
Bradbury, J.C., & Drinen, D.J. ( 2007). Crime and punishment in Major League Baseball: The case of the designated hitter and hit batters. Economic Inquiry , 45, 131-144.
3.
Demsetz, H., & Lehn, K. ( 1985). The structure of corporate ownership: Causes and consequences . Journal of Political Economy, 93, 1155-1177.
4.
Fitts, R.K. ( 2005). Remembering Japanese baseball: An oral history of the game. Carbon-dale: Southern Illinois University Press.
5.
Goff, B.L., Shughart, W.F., II. & Tollison, , R.D. (1997). Batter up! Moral hazard and the effects of the designated hitter rule on hit batsmen. Economic Inquiry, 35, 555-561.
6.
Goff, B.L., Shughart, W.F., II. & Tollison, R.D. (1998). Moral hazard and the effects of the designated hitter rule revisited. Economic Inquiry, 36, 688-692.
7.
Kawaura, A., & LaCroix, S.J. ( 2007). The designated hitter rule and team defensive strategy in Japan’s professional baseball leagues. Journal of Sports Economics, 8, 491-504.
8.
Kelly, W.W. ( 2006). Japan: The Hanshin Tigers and Japanese professional baseball . In G. Gmelch (Ed.), Baseball without borders: The international pastime (pp. 22-42). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
9.
Levitt, S.D. ( 1998). The hazards of moral hazard: Comment on Goff, Shughart, and Tollison. Economic Inquiry, 36, 685-687.
10.
Trandel, G.A. ( 2004). Hit by pitches: Moral hazard, cost-benefit, retaliation, or lack of evidence?Journal of Sports Economics, 5, 87-92.
11.
Trandel, G.A., White, L.H., & Klein, P.G. ( 1998). The effect of the designated hitter rule on hit batsmen: Pitcher’s moral hazard or the team’s cost-benefit calculation? A comment. Economic Inquiry, 36, 679-684.
12.
Whiting, R. ( 1977). The Chrysanthemum and the Bat: The Game Japanese Play . Tokyo: Permanent Press.
13.
Whiting, R. ( 1989). You Gotta Have Wa: When two cultures collide on the baseball diamond. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
