Nope.

I don't think that there is anything to that in real life either.  I haven't looked it up, but I'll bet that stats bear out that players play no better in contract years.  If you aren't trying as hard as you can every day in the MLB, you shouldn't be there, contract season or not.

Posted by shobob on 3/26/2012 9:53:00 PM (view original):
I don't think that there is anything to that in real life either.  I haven't looked it up, but I'll bet that stats bear out that players play no better in contract years.  If you aren't trying as hard as you can every day in the MLB, you shouldn't be there, contract season or not.

It's been studied, and it's real.  It's not as huge as a Fenway bleacher bum might believe (EDIT-- it's about 10% better), but players do perform better in contract seasons.

If you find this sad you're not alone.

I wonder if the stats bear out that it is real, or do players just play through more nagging type injuries and improve their stats by being on field/in line-up more. Case in point, I live in Dallas and everyone is talking about Hamilton will likely more (maybe reach his '09 155 gms played) through the nagging-type injuries AND put up MVP numbers. Seems like it has been easy to let Hamilton slide on games played last couple seasons because the eye was on playoffs, this season is playing for that last big contract and he needs to be on the field and in the line-up to do that.

Posted by headpirate on 3/27/2012 4:31:00 PM (view original):
I wonder if the stats bear out that it is real, or do players just play through more nagging type injuries and improve their stats by being on field/in line-up more. Case in point, I live in Dallas and everyone is talking about Hamilton will likely more (maybe reach his '09 155 gms played) through the nagging-type injuries AND put up MVP numbers. Seems like it has been easy to let Hamilton slide on games played last couple seasons because the eye was on playoffs, this season is playing for that last big contract and he needs to be on the field and in the line-up to do that.

Actually, that's a good point; I just re-read ths study, and just over half the gain is just that-- a 6% or so increase in games played.

It's largely perception in HBD and real life.    When we see a guy in a contract year go off, or a guy who signs a new deal struggle, we assume it's effort based in the real world.  When it happens in HBD, it's only because we notice it.   If I sign a guy to 5/75 because he had a good year, I sure as hell know he's not up to snuff the next season if his numbers fall off.

Dedelman, that sounds like an interesting article.  Could you link it?

It's by Dayn Perry, and it's from the book, Baseball between the Numbers, page 199.  Perry's stuff appears not to be available on the Baseball Prospectus archives, so the only way to see this on the internet is to muddle about with Amazon's "Look Inside" function.