A study of efficiency monitoring systems for match-fixing players in the Chinese Professional Baseball League

Research question: Baseball has existed for over 100 years in Taiwan, and it is one of Taiwan's most popular sports. However, there have been frequent match-fixing scandals from the Chinese Professional Baseball League, which has dismayed baseball fans. Is there a pattern of match-fixing among players? Research methods: The concept and methods of ‘efficiency and productivity’ were used to explore players’ efficiency, and a weighted moving average was used to verify whether there was a efficiency change of players over the years. A single week was used as a time point, so there were a total of 342 time points for the fielders involved in three match-fixing scandals and a total of 161 time points for the pitchers involved in two match-fixing scandals. Results and Findings: According to the monitoring system for the efficiency anomalies of the players, the detection accuracy rate for the three match-fixing scandals was 62%, and the overall detection accuracy for the match-fixing scandals in 1996 was 71%. Moreover, the detection accuracy rate for efficiency anomalies of the fielders in match-fixing scandals in 2008 reached 100%. No efficiency anomalies were detected for the fielders in 2005 and for the pitchers in 2008. Implications: An assessment model was established to continuously evaluate and monitor the players’ long-term efficiency trends, and to further implement a monitoring system for the efficiency anomalies of players, hoping to prevent match-fixing scandals from occurring.