As Albert Pujols embarks upon one of the most memorable contract years in baseball history, a common debate in the baseball world has resurfaced: Do major leaguers tend to perform at a higher level in these so-called “walk years?”
Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to that question. A couple studies in recent years have found this is not the case, while others have concluded that there is a correlation between contract years and increased performance.
The debate frequently focuses on one player in particular: Adrian Beltre. Beltre is a .275 career hitter but hit .334 and .321 in his 2004 and 2010 contract years, respectively.
In addition to being the only seasons in which Beltre hit above .290, 2004 and 2010 were also the only two times he has surpassed 26 HRs or 99 RBI. As you may recall, he nearly doubled that home run mark in 2004.
But Yahoo!’s Brandon Funston recently claimed that the notion Beltre performs better in contract years is a “myth,” citing an article by FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron (no, not that Dave Cameron).
Cameron argued that those who cite Beltre’s 2004 and 2010 seasons conveniently ignore the fact that Beltre actually “had five seasons in which he was playing under an expiring contract” and “[m]ore often than not, he’s performed worse, not better.” According to Cameron, a better explanation for Beltre’s career years in 2004 and 2010 is that those were “the last two seasons in which he was not spending half of his games hitting in Safeco Field,” one of baseball’s most difficult parks for “a right-handed pull power hitter.”
Cameron makes some interesting points, and there is no question that playing at Safeco took a major toll on Beltre’s numbers. But the case is not as open-and-shut as Cameron suggests.
For one thing, Beltre’s massive 2004 season was with the Los Angeles Dodgers, meaning he played half his games in Chavez Ravine, which has frequently ranked as one of the top pitcher’s parks in baseball.
Moreover, two of the five seasons Cameron counted as years Beltre was playing for a new contract—2002 and 2003—were years in which Beltre was eligible for arbitration, not free agency. This means far less money was at stake than when Beltre was about to head onto the open market looking for a multi-year deal.
The other year besides 2004 and 2010 that Cameron included was 2009, a walk year in which Beltre put up a disappointing .265-54-8-44 season that forced him to sign a one-year contract rather than land a lucrative multi-year deal.
Beltre famously missed much of the 2009 season with a severely contused testicle (groan), but the injury that best explains his poor performance was a shoulder injury that bothered him all year. The Seattle Times reported at the time that Beltre said his shoulder “never was 100 percent” all season and that it felt “like someone stabbed you in the shoulder” every time he lifted it.
So what are we to make of all this? Well, let’s just say it’s hard to know exactly what impact playing out a contract will have on any given player. It seems safe to assume that based on their mental makeup, some players will perform better in a contract year, some worse and some it won’t impact at all.
What we know for sure, though, is that players that step up in contract years are handsomely rewarded. So without further ado, here is the list of the top 15 players who could be in for big seasons in 2011—and big paydays in 2012.