Batting for Bucks : Once Players Have a Big-Money Contract, a Study Shows, Many No Longer Hit or Pitch as Well as When They Were Moving Up the Salary Ladder

Here’s an early season flash from the halls of academia: Baseball superstars not only are grossly overpaid, but they don’t behave like laboratory rats.

Confirming scientifically what anyone who watched the Angels last season already knows, psychologists at Northern Illinois University say research on the performance of players proves that the more they make, the worse they seem to play.

Alan Repp, the professor in charge of the study, said the object was to translate the tenets of basic psychology and motivational research to sports. Batting, pitching and fielding statistics were married with salary figures to see whether ballplayers responded favorably to positive reinforcement--as most animals do.

For example, reward rats with cheese instead of a shock for taking the right path through a maze and they quickly will turn into expert navigators. As for people, numerous behavioral studies show that job performance tends to improve in the wake of raises and bonuses.

But according to the Northern Illinois findings, give a ballplayer a fat new contract and he will more often than not tend to lose his batting eye or pitch home run balls.

“Once they get large magnitudes of reward, they are no longer motivated by pay,” Repp said.

Conversely, Repp and a fellow researcher found that, as a group, ballplayers who don’t get astronomical raises tend to increase their performances and sometimes do better than the high rollers.

As in much university research, the analysis is highly technical and presented in terms that might seem like gibberish to all but the most dedicated of statistic freaks.

In essence, the Northern Illinois team focused on the records of the 150 major league players who had pay raises of 100% or more in 1988, 1989 or 1990. These were compared with the records of a control group of 300 randomly selected players who didn’t get such pay hikes during the same period.

Borrowing a formula devised by baseball statistician Bill James to determine a player’s overall value, the researchers compared the relative worth of the high-salaried players both before and after they got their raises.

The results are expressed in an unorthodox value system devised by James and used by the Society for American Baseball Research. For pitchers, “sabermetric” numbers are arrived at by composing a set of values for games and innings pitched, as well as victories, losses, saves and a few other factors. For non-pitchers, the value includes data on games played, batting average, slugging percentage, home runs, walks, steals, runs batted in and fielding.

In the 1988 season, for example, 13 pitchers--among them Mark Langston, Roger Clemens, Zane Smith and Greg Swindell--doubled their salaries. But their performance as a group did not improve, whereas the performance of the control group of pitchers, the ones who didn’t get the big money in 1988, did get better.

Here are the numbers:

In 1987, the well-paid 13 averaged a sabermetric value of 8.70--a good rating that led to the huge raises.

They slumped, however, averaging a rating of 8.34 in 1988. And in 1989, they fell to an average 6.61.

The control group of pitchers averaged 6.48 in 1987, 8.85 in 1988 and 7.77 in 1989--exceeding the performance of their better-paid counterparts in the latter two years.

“Ironically, while performance of major league pitchers in general did not decrease, performance of those who received large raises did,” Repp said.

Immediate sags in overall performance also were recorded for the pitchers who hit the salary jackpot in 1989 and 1990, as well as such non-pitchers as Wally Joyner, Eric Davis, Jose Canseco and others who got their raises in 1988 or 1989. Of the groups studied, only the 1990 class of raise-winning position players showed a slight, but immediate, improvement in their performances.

What does all this number-crunching mean? Statistically, Repp suggests, teams probably are throwing money away by agreeing to shell out $5 million plus for Bobby Bonilla, Jack Morris or even Roger Clemens.

“Clearly, 100% raises are not reinforcers for most of these people,” Repp said. “General managers don’t seem to understand this very basic principle in psychology.”

Repp acknowledges, though, that there can be exceptions.

For example, he says that Chicago Cub second baseman Ryne Sandberg might be worth every penny of the record $7.1 million he will average in the final four years of his contract. But then again, Repp admits to being a closet Cub fan, a breed never known to let logic cloud their outlook.

Merit System?

An analysis of players who received raises of more than 100%, and how they fared the next season, according to a study by Northern Illinois University.

PITCHERS

1989 1989 1990 1990 Player, Team Salary Score Salary Score Rick Aguilera, Mets, Twins $295,000 8.2 $648,000 9.92 Chris Bosio, Brewers 200,000 10.9 710,000 3.0 Tom Browning, Reds 1,025,000 12.4 2,125,000 10.10 David Cone, Mets 332,500 10.4 1,300,000 11.2 Jose DeLeon, Cardinals 662,500 13.3 1,666,667 6.14 Doug Drabek, Pirates 325,000 13.4 1,100,000 15.9 Sid Fernandez, Mets 795,000 10.9 1,667,667 7.6 Brian Holman, Expos, Mariners 82,500 8.1 193,000 5.6 Eric King, White Sox 165,000 5.6 415,000 6.5 Bob Kipper, Pirates 230,000 3.85 525,000 4.8 Gregg Olson, Orioles 70,000 9.4 260,000 10.5 Dan Plesac, Brewers 745,000 9.0 1,466,667 6.86 John Smiley, Pirates 230,000 10.1 840,000 5.3 Greg Swindell, Indians 285,000 7.4 840,000 7.97 Mitch Williams, Cubs 377,500 10.1 1,125,000 6.39 Bobby Witt, Rangers 200,000 5.73 415,000 11.4 Matt Young, A’s, Mariners 250,000 -0.67 587,000 7.98

NON-PITCHERS

1989 1989 1990 1990 Player, Team Salary Score Salary Score Ivan Calderon, White Sox $380,000 10.0 $925,000 9.0 Will Clark, Giants 1,125,000 15.0 2,250,000 11.0 Shawon Dunston, Cubs 550,000 9.09 1,250,000 11.0 Andres Galarraga, Expos 865,000 9.0 1,950,000 9.0 Mike Gallego, Athletics 207,500 7.29 500,000 4.23 Mark Grace, Cubs 140,000 12.0 325,000 11.0 Mike Greenwell, Red Sox 500,000 10.0 1,225,000 11.0 Kelly Gruber, Blue Jays 462,500 10.0 1,150,000 12.0 Howard Johnson, Mets 772,500 15.0 1,666,667 11.0 Barry Larkin, Reds 302,500 9.37 750,000 12.0 Fred McGriff, Blue Jays 300,000 13.0 1,450,000 15.0 Mark McGwire, Athletics 475,000 10.0 1,500,000 11.0 Kevin Mitchell, Giants 585,000 15.0 2,830,000 13.0 Terry Pendleton, Cardinals 695,000 9.0 1,850,000 4.13 Benito Santiago, Padres 335,000 6.11 1,250,000 8.33 Kevin Seitzer, Royals 340,000 10.0 1,001,250 10.0 Cory Snyder, Indians 340,000 6.07 700,000 6.17 B.J. Surhoff, Brewers 180,000 5.16 575,000 8.06 Robin Yount, Brewers 1,150,000 12.0 3,200,000 9.0

Sources: USA TODAY, Northern Illinois University