Stay Hungry with a side of snark

In today's column, Nick Cafardo shoots down the idea of players playing well in their contract years, but then lists a bunch of Red Sox - primarily David Ortiz - who should have good years because they're out to prove their worth for a big payday after 2010.

I'm glad Cafardo - whose work I do respect despite today's snark - thinks that Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Adrian Beltre, Jonathan Papelbon, Victor Martinez, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Bill Hall will be motivated by dollars to have big years. But am I naive to think that contract status is a minuscule part of a formula that determines success?

If I am, then so are John Henry and Theo Epstein:

"I'm not really a believer in the theory that players can play at another level in their contract years," wrote Sox owner John Henry in an e-mail. "I think our players generally give as much as they have over 162 games. It's a long, long season. Sometimes it may not look that way because they often play injured - more often than people think, because a lot of injuries - especially nagging ones - you never hear about."

"I've never studied it myself," said general manager Theo Epstein, "but the data I have seen does not suggest a consistent pattern."

Further confounding the argument is that Cafardo cited a Maureen Mullen MLB.com report that Dice-K ditched his regimen at the Arizona Performance Institute for a week:

Dice-K spent a week there in December and is continuing his training there this month, although he unexpectedly took this week off, according to a source. The time off is not believed to be injury-related.

That doesn't sound like he's too hungry, unless he was literally hungry and took off to find something to eat. At least this topic put Stay Hungry, one of my favorite Twisted Sister songs, in my head, a vast improvement over some of the songs that have been rattling around my noggin this weekend.

More snark: Over in Phillies-land, we can rest assured that with Opening Day 64 days away, Placido Polanco is "working on third-base skills." And I thought he was just going to wing it at a position where he logged about 330 innings in 2003 to 2005, but none since.

By the way, that was not a knock at Matt Gelb's report. At least he's writing. Whatever happened to Andy Martino?

[Photo credit: Wikipedia]