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Banner Years
November 6, 2002 - DW
Mike Green asked: What about the effect of contract status? Have studies been done of performance outside of normal variations in the last year of a contract with impending free agency/arbitration? I can think of a number of players who had their banner year as they entered free agency.
The first "serious" study I ever did was on this topic - unfortunately, the only copies of it reside in a professor's office (or trashcan) and in a dead laptop somewhere in Middle Earth, so forgive my lack of detail. I looked at changes in the performance cycle (how players do in year one, year two, etc...) before and after free agency, wondering if players would play better (work harder) in their prior to free agency) and play worse in the year after FA. Used PROD+ and PROD+ times PA, iirc, as the prinicpal measures of performance (though results were independent of metric). Controlled for age and "quality" (average regular, star, etc...) Modeled with a variety of regression frameworks (I remember that I used single and multiple regs, but not much of the details). The twist is that I wasn't privy to a player's FA status - I estimated it by mandating high PA totals in the first n years of his career (to estimate service time) and comparing the pre- and post- free agency periods. Result: saw no impact, either in playing time or performance per game resulting from the advent of free agency. (Mind you - there are things I'd change about that study - most notably, actually knowing players' FA statuses and having a backup copy of everything on disk somewhere - but it's a faint datapoint against the shirking argument.)
DRA Addendum (Excel) (January 16, 2004)
Discussion ThreadPosted 10:48 p.m.,
January 17, 2004
(#6) -
DW
Michael,
I don't think I've commented on your efforts in any of the other threads, but I want to congratulate you on some very nice work. Good job.