The Contract Year Myth

[Fireball Express]

These aren't baseball examples, but they are off the top of my head. Tiger Woods and Donovan McNAbb had "off seasons" after getting amrried, I believe Shaq did as well

.

Tiger Woods had wrist, knee and spine injuries during 2003 and 2004. Getting married to a hot chick had nothing to do with it.

I find that when a player returns from a few days off because his wife had a healthy baby, he usually performs well immediately afterwards. If the baby has health issues it may distract that player. (Marcus Giles 2006?)

As far as players in contract years go, I think there are 2 types of players. Some players are relaxed and play better when under contract while others need the $$$ to set a fire under their arse.

[phillibuster]

Really, was he? Also, I remember the "expecting wives" thread last season, someone's gotta get that one going again.

Pedro was married this off-season.

[Amazinz]

Yeah he married one of the ESPN Deportes reporters.

[phillibuster]

Sweet fancy moses......the Mets are in trouble.

Yeah he married one of the ESPN Deportes reporters.

[BobbyRoberto]

Baseball Prospectus has a new book coming out called Baseball Between the Numbers and this is one of the things they discuss. At USS Mariner, one of the bloggers had a short blip about this:

“Do Players Perform Better in Contract Years?” by Dayn Perry comes to the conclusion that yeah, they do, but the perception also stems from age-related decline, as most free agents are in their thirties.

The book isn't out yet, but it sounds like they've done some analysis there and come to the conclusion that it's not entirely a myth.

[jjigglers]

These aren't baseball examples, but they are off the top of my head. Tiger Woods and Donovan McNAbb had "off seasons" after getting amrried, I believe Shaq did as well

.

Tiger Woods had wrist, knee and spine injuries during 2003 and 2004. Getting married to a hot chick had nothing to do with it.

You sure?

[nuggets]

.... contract years actually do matter (although perhaps not in the way you may have expected)....

http://www.middlebury.edu/services/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0507.pdf

from:

http://www.fantasybaseballcafe.com/foru ... &p=1370794

[exit56]

How can you have this discussion without mentioning steroids? If you had the possibility of signing $50 million dollar long-term contract wouldn't you consider going over to the "dark side"?

Trouble is, you really can't mention names because you risk a libel suit.