Are Major League Baseball Starting Pitchers Compensated for Stadium Risk?

摘要

This paper examines the significance of stadium effects on the determination of starting pitcher salaries. It models stadium effect first under the assumption of perfect certainty, and then includes risk through uncertainty. Using starting pitchers’ statistics between 1990 and 2008, this paper determines that the stadium effect is not significant in the model with perfect certainty, but becomes significant when uncertainty (risk) is introduced. An unexpected result of the test shows, however, that there is a fundamental difference between the American League, where the stadium effect is significant, and the National League, where it is insignificant in both models.