Economists have debated whether and why the designated hitter (DH) rule in North American Major League Baseball led to an increase in hit batsmen. We use data from Japan's professional baseball leagues to reexamine this question. Our empirical analyses of hit batsmen for batters as well as by...

We examine the 1965 change from an open-bidding to a draft system for new players in Japan's professional baseball leagues. Our theoretical analysis, which incorporates two factors commonly observed in professional sports, imperfect information on new recruits and outlier, highly skilled...