I found this site while I was looking up Bret Boone's contract, and thought the Boone fans might enjoy it.

Boone got over $8 million a year for 3 years. There was really no competitive bidding for him. There are a few possible reasons for this:

1. Other teams thought his year was a fluke.


2. Teams didn't want to spend money on free agents without a new CBA.


3. Teams colluded again.

There have been studies (see Baseball and Billions by Andrew Zimbalist) that point to declining performance when free agents sign big contracts. But what I think those studies haven't done well is analyze what really should be expected of those players. They look at year-to-year performance, and a player with a great option year is likely to get a big contract, but also likely to fall off since that option year may represent his best performance.

Let's take a look at two recent refugees from the Seattle Mariners, Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez. Griffey left, and made it clear that he just wanted out of Seattle. He signed way below his market value, and has been disappointing at best for the Reds. A-Rod, on the other hand, went the free agent route and got, what many believe, to be way too much money. He's been absolutely fabulous (thanks Eddie and Patsy). Boone signs below market value and he's been disappointing.

Now, let's think about how one might view his work. Let's say you think you are underpayed, and the situation isn't going to change any time soon. Are you going to do your best? Why work hard? You're not getting paid for it. Especially if someone else who's not as good as you is being paid much more.

Let's say you are overpayed. You might work a lot harder, because you feel guilt about being overpaid. You may feel you have to contribute a lot to justify your salary. Do you agree?

See, I think the fall off after signing a contract is that lots of baseball people don't know how to evaluate talent. They get a free agent who's 30 years old, who has had a couple of good years, give him a lot of money, and are surprised when he declines. But when you do it right, signing a 26 year-old like Alomar or Rodriguez, it's worth every penny. But signing a superstart like Griffey at bargain prices also seems to be a mistake, because there is really no motivation there for the player to perform well.

I'm going to try to come up with a way of studying this, to see if we can really find some objective evidence to support these claims.