While that may be, at some point you have to realize that baseball players are people, just like us. Would you find yourself working harder if you knew there was a potential for a large pay increase or bonus? Of course you would, its human nature. Ask Yankee fans what they think of this guy. Aside from what his statistics have shown over the past two years, the sniff test say that he has miraculously turned in the best two seasons of his career in contract years. Add in the fact his is a 35 year old pitcher carrying a serious injury history and I would be very, very cautious with this guy. I just put together some quick stats on him: Here are his numbers without his contract years in FLA and MIN: YEAR TEAM G GS IP H R ER HR BB SO W L WHIP ERA 1998 Mon 24 23 134.7 130 70 63 18 43 83 6 9 1.28 4.21 1999 Mon 19 18 104.0 117 66 65 8 35 70 6 8 1.46 5.63 2000 Mon 15 15 97.0 89 40 33 8 34 64 8 4 1.27 3.06 2001 Mon 8 8 42.7 59 33 30 7 16 36 1 6 1.76 6.33 2002 Mon 15 14 74.3 98 55 52 14 31 51 3 8 1.74 6.30 2002 Fla 22 8 61.7 76 33 26 5 14 41 3 2 1.46 3.80 2003 Fla 33 32 201.0 204 99 96 19 49 133 12 13 1.26 4.30 2005 NYY 17 17 100.0 129 66 53 17 18 56 4 6 1.47 4.77 2007 NYY 2 2 11.3 12 7 6 1 2 4 1 0 1.24 4.77 2008 NYY 7 7 34.3 41 23 22 5 10 15 4 2 1.49 5.77 2009 Cle 21 21 125.7 150 80 75 19 23 88 9 8 1.38 5.37 2009 Min 12 12 73.7 85 39 38 7 16 59 5 4 1.37 4.64 Total 195 177 1060.3 1190 611 559 128 291 700 62 70 1.40 4.74Here are his contract years in FLA and MIN: YEAR TEAM G GS IP H R ER HR BB SO W L WHIP ERA 2004 Fla 31 31 222.3 212 80 74 16 49 139 18 8 1.17 3.00 2010 Min 32 32 221.0 227 95 92 24 37 117 17 11 1.19 3.75 Total 63 63 443.3 439 175 166 40 86 256 35 19 1.18 3.37 Edit: This is cool, I never knew you could just paste excel tables in here! To be fair, his 2009 season was a contract year too.