On the Decision to Take a Pitch

Baseball is a highly strategic game, with decisions being made almost continuously. In this paper, we analyze the decision to have the batter take a pitch, which means that he does not swing at the pitch under any circumstances—even if it is easily hittable. Why would a batter do this? Using decision-theoretic reasoning, we determine under what circumstances such a decision is good. We find that in some cases, taking pitches deterministically dominates not taking.