The general manager of the Cleveland Indians baseball team is in the process of determining which minor-league players to draft. He is aware that his team needs home-run hitters and would like to find a way to predict the number of home runs a player will hit. Being an astute statistician, he gathers a random sample of players and records the number of home runs each player hit in his first two full years as a major-league player, the number of home runs he hit in his last full year in the minor leagues, his age, and the number of years of professional baseball.

a. Develop a regression model and use a software package to produce the statistics.

b. Interpret each of the coefficients.

c. How well does the model fit?

d. Test the model’s validity.

e. Do each of the independent variables belong in the model?

f. Calculate the 95% interval of the number of home runs in the first two years of a player who is 25 years old, has played professional baseball for 7 years, and hit 22 home runs in his last year in the minor leagues.

g. Calculate the 95% interval of the expected number of home runs in the first two years of players who are 27 years old, have played professional baseball for 5 years, and hit 18 home runs in their last year in the minors.