My friend’s father once spent an afternoon explaining to me the Black Swan theory, and how it relates to sports.  Surprisingly, it has little to do with Natalie Portman and much more to do with Roger Maris.

Maris was a decent hitter, he explained, but never a great one and certainly not the person you would peg for an all-time power-hitting season.  His 61 homers in 1961 was an aberration in the same way Brady Anderson hit 50 homers in 1996 or even Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001.  Those home run totals were so out of whack that they have almost nothing to do with the player’s past or future performance.

Think of it this way: if you see a black swan swimming amidst a flock of white swans, does that mean that there are more black swans on the way?  Or is he the only one of his kind?

Deep stuff.

With that brain buster in mind, I wanted to take a look at some MLB players who are having black swan seasons either heading into free agency or right after earning a big contract.

Should MLB executives pay the guys who are about to hit the open market based on how they have done in the past, or how they will do in the future, or a blend of both?  And which guys are rewarding or punishing the GMs who paid them the big bucks last winter?

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