Debunking The Myth Of Highly Paid "Coasters" In Baseball
One IBWAA member makes a case for why players who underperform after signing big contracts shouldn't be accused of coasting.
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . After being non-tendered last year by the Dodgers and then signing with the Cubs in the offseason, Cody Bellinger was selected as the National League Player of the Month for July 2023. Entering play on Tuesday, he was among NL leaders in several hitting categories, including batting average (fourth, .332), slugging percentage (sixth, .552), offensive Baseball Reference WAR (ninth, 3.7), sacrifice flies (tied for first, seven), and wRC+ (sixth among players with at least 300 plate appearances, 149).
. . . Jason Bay is one of two MLB players to be traded three times before winning the Rookie of the Year Award — the other was Lou Piniella, who earned the honor in 1969 with the Royals. Bay is still the only Canadian to win a Rookie of the Year honor, and he was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.
Leading Off
Coasting On A Big Contract
By Mark Kolier
Before the 2010 season, All-Star outfielder Jason Bay signed a four-year, $66 million free agent contract with the Mets. Bay was in demand and the Mets had passed on Matt Holliday, who was also a free agent and ended up signing with the Cardinals for $120 million over seven years. Prior to joining the Mets, Bay had the 2004 National League Rookie of the Year Award to his credit and had just finished seventh in MVP voting for the Red Sox. He was 31 years old and at his peak. From the moment he joined the Mets, the rest of his career was a complete disappointment.
Did Bay just get paid and then “mail it in”? When players receive a big contract, they have worked hard for that payday. If the contract goes well, everyone is happy, including the team’s fans and the local media. Too often, if it does not go well and the player performs poorly, as in the case of Bay, it can indicate to fans that the player is “coasting” and not trying as hard because “he got paid.” C’mon people, with rare exception, this is complete and utter nonsense! In Bay’s case, he tried everything and anything he could to fix what ailed him, his team, and the fans. He never fully rediscovered his stroke -- Bay hit .234 as a Met with 26 homers over 3 seasons. Keep in mind that $16-plus million per year was an enormous contract in 2010.
This season Jeff McNeil, also of the Mets and last season’s MLB batting champion, is having a subpar season. In the offseason he signed a significant contract -- $50 million for four years, which is less AAV (average annual value) than Bay received 13 years ago. McNeil tends to wear his heart on his sleeve and looks both annoyed and frustrated when he is not playing up to his standards, as are his fans. His teammates know he’s trying hard. Maybe too hard? Playing Major League Baseball is very difficult, and the dividing line between a player’s peak performance and below-his-average performance is finer than you might think.
Cody Bellinger, now on the Cubs, was the NL Rookie of the Year in 2017 and the NL MVP in 2019 for the Dodgers. Despite that early glory, he gradually fizzled out in L.A., and at age 27 he signed what amounts to a “Prove-it” deal for $12.5 million this season which carries a mutual option (and a $5 million buyout) for 2024. He’s having a terrific comeback season. Do people really think that because there’s no guarantee for his future, Bellinger is trying harder and that effort has resulted in his success this season? He’s been trying the entire time!
The price of fame as a big league ballplayer is that your performance is out in front of the entire world. Like football coach Bill Parcells said, “You are what your record says you are.” After a player has a bad year, that player still comes to work every day trying to find his personal key to success. In some seasons that success is never achieved, and the player’s day-to-day failures are played out for all to see in slow-motion.
Think for a moment about how it would be if in your professional career, you just had a “bad year” performance-wise. Maybe you were distracted with personal issues or had other factors impacting your day-to-day work life (managers, co-workers, tasks, etc.). Perhaps it was health-related. But at least when you are not in the public eye, you can rest a bit easier because there are no standings, daily statistics, or public evaluations of your performance. Professional athletes understand this and they signed up for it, but they are still human beings. To think that they’d get “paid” and then just go through the motions for a season or more demonstrates a lack of understanding of what made them good enough to be professional athletes in the first place.
This is not to deny the fact that some pro athletes come into a season out of shape or agitated over their contract status. It happens. But in today’s world of training, gobs of money, and the understanding of what it takes to be the best, it happens less frequently. It’s not unthinkable that the big contract would make a player try TOO hard and think TOO much. That’s much more likely the case than is the player mentally and/or physically checking out and resting on their laurels and bank account.
It may sometimes appear to fans and media that a player is not giving it everything they’ve got. A player’s contract status shouldn’t be a reason for the player to not play their best or try their hardest. Nor should playing time or usage impact effort on the field. But at the same time, frustration can play out on the field in many ways, including what looks like carelessness and/or inattention to details. Fans expect professional baseball players to make the right play mentally and physically every single time. After all, they’re professionals, right? Don’t they practice this stuff? What I am confident of is that players are not just going through the motions even when it might seem that way.
The career of a professional athlete strikes me as four things – short, stressful, amazing, and depressing. It too soon leads to, “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?” Baseball is a humbling sport.
No professional sport that I know of allows for coasting even though it might look that way to a fan.
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and now Substack.com.