Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Beyond Moneyball: Changing Compensation In Mlb, Joshua Congdon-Hohman, Jonathan A. Lanning

Economics Department Working Papers

This study examines the changes in player compensation in Major League Baseball during the last three decades. Specifically, we examine the extent to which recently documented changes in players’ compensation structure based on certain types of productivity fits in with the longer term trends in compensation, and identify the value of specific output activities in different time periods. We examine free agent contracts in three-year periods across three decades and find changes to which players’ performance measures are significantly rewarded in free agency. We find evidence that the compensation strategies of baseball teams increased the rewards to “power” statistics like …