Free-Agency in Major League Baseball & It's Effect on Player Performance

Authors

Keenan King, The College of Wooster

Abstract

This paper explores free agency and it's possible effect on player performance, holding all else constant. Free agency is analyzed theoretically and econometrically as a promotion tournament of sorts, where it works as a motivator that gives players the incentive to boost their performance, in order to be rewarded with an overpaid free agent contract. The purpose of this paper, in finding the effect of free agency on performance, is to find whether or not employers in MLB are strategically overpaying free agents in order to elicit greater performance from all players, rather than simply overestimating the worth of such overpaid players.

Advisor

Mellizo, Philip

Department

Economics

Recommended Citation

King, Keenan, "Free-Agency in Major League Baseball & It's Effect on Player Performance" (2013). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 791.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/791

Disciplines

Economics

Publication Date

2013

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis