pet peeve of the day..."contract year"

[GADawg]

i guess i'm just being naive but it drives me crazy to think some players can turn it up another notch or two during a year when they're playing for a new contract. As a fan I'd like to think these guys are putting out every year but there is some evidence of guys putting up career numbers, signing new big deals, and then not living up to expectations.

I can almost understand going through the motions if I'm a veteran playing for the Pirates in late august for example but even then i'd like to think i'd have enough pride to give 100%. While I'm on the subject the thought that big league managers, nfl coaches, etc...need to be "motivators" drives me crazy too. Again it's probably being naive but you'd think pride and a paycheck would be all the motivation these "professionals" would need.

[The Operator]

Two of my favorite contract year performances were turned in by Adrian Beltre, circa 2004 and then 2010. Guy can turn it on when he wants to.

[Eric_the_Red]

There have been a few studies that show the contract year theory doesn't hold water. Some play better, some worse, but we seem to only remember those that play better.

One such study from last year:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/13/yankees-phillies-astros-business-sports-bloomberg-baseball.html

[Griffey012]

Two of my favorite contract year performances were turned in by Adrian Beltre, circa 2004 and then 2010. Guy can turn it on when he wants to.

What about Beltre in 2009, you left that out of the equation. It was a contract year and was his 2nd worse season in the bigs based on WAR. I am guessing he really wanted to turn it on that year.

[jojo]

Adrian Beltre has been a very good player for over a decade and an underrated bat because of the environments he's played in (look at his home/road splits as an M). He really doesn't have gears. If you look at his down years with the Ms, 2005 and 2009 in particular, he played through some pretty severe leg/shoulder issues (though I think he would've struggled in 2005 no matter what-it was a slumpy, painful year). He's pretty much a warrior who plays through issues.

His 2010 pretty much is what happens when you put him in an offensive environment and a few things go his way as well. He's likely to be close to a 5 WAR player in Texas this year.

If Beltre is proof of a contract year narrative, then the narrative doesn't have legs IMHO.

[jojo]

I'm not near my baseball library at the moment but thinking about playing through injury, I seem to remember a Baseball By The Numbers article on contract years. Someone correct me if my memory stinks but I recall it was shown that while players tended to post higher numbers in their contract years, the effect wasn't huge and a lot of it was do to increased playing time that year as players did tend to play through injuries more in the walk year.

Back to Beltre, he plays through injury as a matter of course so that wouldn't seem to apply to him in his walk years.

[Hoosier Red]

i guess i'm just being naive but it drives me crazy to think some players can turn it up another notch or two during a year when they're playing for a new contract. As a fan I'd like to think these guys are putting out every year but there is some evidence of guys putting up career numbers, signing new big deals, and then not living up to expectations.

I can almost understand going through the motions if I'm a veteran playing for the Pirates in late august for example but even then i'd like to think i'd have enough pride to give 100%. While I'm on the subject the thought that big league managers, nfl coaches, etc...need to be "motivators" drives me crazy too. Again it's probably being naive but you'd think pride and a paycheck would be all the motivation these "professionals" would need.

I think this proves nothing more than baseball players are human beings. No human being is at the same level every day. Making millions of dollars doesn't change that.
If you have your annual performance review at the end of the week, do you make a special effort to do a few positive things your boss might notice? Shouldn't you have been doing those things every day.
If you see a police officer in the median of an interstate, don't you check your speed and maybe tap on the breaks a little bit?
Shouldn't you have been watching your speed a little bit any way?

As for managers motivating the players, that's sort of the role of a manager isn't it? Every individual player has different things motivating him, a manager's job is to find those things and utilize them. I think most people only think of the manager deploying tricks like Phil Jackson, or kicking the players in the butt as ways to motivate. But most managers (in the real world and in baseball) prove to be the best motivators when they show they have the player's best interests at heart, and therefore when they ask players to do something, the player's focus is just on doing whatever the manager wants them to do. This is something at which Dusty Baker is excellent. A starting pitcher knows that Dusty wants to get him a win, or a complete game, or acheive some milestone which will help the player in his next contract, so when Dusty goes to take the ball in the top of the 5th, the player doesn't dwell on it.
When a young player (Jay Bruce) gets benched for a few days, he can sit next to Dusty and learn a few things because he knows Dusty wants to play him. Similarly, when a guy is 0 for his last 20, and Dusty keeps writing his name in the starting lineup, he can grind, because he believes Dusty has his best interests at heart.

[jojo]

Found this when searching for the D Perry article...

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/04/15/do-guys-turn-it-up-a-notch-in-a-contract-year/


That’s the conventional wisdom: players try harder when free agency looms, resulting in big walk years and big contracts handed out by teams who get hung up on the whole recency thing.

But it’s not true say the boys who run Bloomberg’s new baseball stats outfit:

[Brutus]

I think there is substance to "contract year" but not because a player can or does turn it up when they have a contract on the line, but just because often a contract year first aligns with players' peak years, so they're often having career performances around that time.

[jmcclain19]

I think there is substance to "contract year" but not because a player can or does turn it up when they have a contract on the line, but just because often a contract year first aligns with players' peak years, so they're often having career performances around that time.

This x2

At the highest levels of the sport, I find it highly improbable that guys can just turn it on and off like a light switch.

Most of these happen in the 27-32 time range, when guys are at their best.

You do hear more about guys like Adrian Beltre, and less about guys like Dunn, who had more of an off year because he was more than likely pressing trying to earn that next big contract.

[BCubb2003]

I prefer to call it the "clutch year."

[Dom Heffner]

Two of my favorite contract year performances were turned in by Adrian Beltre, circa 2004 and then 2010. Guy can turn it on when he wants to.

These were the years he was out of Seattle.

I'll bet you two donuts and a cup of coffee he does pretty well in Texas and Vladimir Guerrero taks a dive.

[membengal]

Vlad's contract was for one year. If it's a contract year theory, he's on another contract year in Baltimore.