Inside the process
To come up with the highest- scoring batting order for the Phillies, Mark Pankin utilized the Markov process, developed in the early 1900s by Russian mathematician A.A. Markov (1856-1922). Applied by Pankin to baseball, the Markov Process considers the probabilities of going from one baserunner-and-out situation to another, computed for each hitter in the lineup. The model then evaluates the run-scoring probabilities in each inning. Adding up these evaluations over nine innings produces the long-term average runs for the given lineup, which is the basis of finding the best batting order.
Mark Kram