"Contract Year"

In the final season of a three-year, $37 million deal he inked with the Mets on December 10, 2008, Rodríguez is likely to put up some great numbers in order to garner a new contract from either the Mets or another suitor.

So reads some analysis of the "top 10 relief pitchers for 2011." It's a common opinion you hear voiced: this is so-and-so's "contract year," so you know they'll put up great numbers. Now, there may certainly be players who do appear to demonstrate this phenomenon. Adrian Beltre, from what I hear, might be one of them. And if someone wants to show me evidence, statistical evidence, that players do better on average in their contract years than in other years, across the whole of Major League Baseball, I'd be willing to entertain the notion that this is, in fact, a real thing that occurs generally speaking.

But consider what it means. Players cannot, obviously, simply decide to perform well. If it were that easy, etc. The most a player can do, I think, is decide to try harder. So we're stipulating that K-Rod, or Reyes, or whoever, weren't really trying their best in the years in the middle of their contracts. Do we really believe this? I don't. Not in general. I play a sport, and let me tell you, it sucks to do badly. It really, really does not feel good. And in baseball you have the added element that when you do badly, you get to have the extra fun feeling of losing that much more often. So I don't honestly believe that players are really just sort of sleepwalking through their careers, through their professions, except when they think the spotlight is on them to perform well and sign a big contract this offseason. I don't believe it, as a matter of human psychology. I think most players conceive of themselves as baseball players, and they are doing this because they want to be really, really good baseball players. And they also want to get paid lots of money, but I have a feeling they don't really think, well, if I have a great year this year people will have forgotten it already by the time I'm next a free agent, so I'll slack off this week. I don't buy it.