# What athletes actually give "110%" (or more)?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [December 6, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211 "2009-12-06T18:17:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211/1 "2009-12-06T18:17:40Z")

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Ha ha, I had a sudden insight while replying to another thread in MPSIMS about what it might mean for an athlete to say they gave 110%. It’s not another case of a “dumb jock spouting mathematical nonsense”, it’s actually a very subtle way of complaining about their contract (or negotiatingfor the next one)!

Consider that typical fixed-duration bonds are “priced as percent”, and can fluctuate above or below par after issuance based on changes in market demand after the bonds were issued. Similarly, players typically play under fixed duration contract agreements extending at least one season and sometimes much longer, as opposed to game-to-game.

So by that analogy, one could interpret “giving 110%” as “playing 10% harder than my contract pays me to play, being as I am being paid exactly the league average salary and I got back 10% more ROI than the average player at my position would produce in the same game situation”.

If you take this as the basis for rendering “playing at 110%” a sensical statement, what players in pro sports would you say gave significantly more than 100% last year?

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**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211/2 "2009-12-06T18:23:49Z")

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I get to be the first to say “Tiger Woods.” And not only on the golf course!

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**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211/3 "2009-12-06T19:41:34Z")

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In baseball it’d be pretty easy to figure out - Salary/WARP or Salary/VORP.

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**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211/4 "2009-12-06T22:35:12Z")

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> [@Munch](#):
>
> In baseball it’d be pretty easy to figure out - Salary/WARP or Salary/VORP.

Not being a roto-player or a Sabermetrician, where would one find stats like “VORP” (which I believe is Value Over Replacement Player, where Replacement = statistically normalized player at that position)?

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**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211/5 "2009-12-06T23:00:21Z")

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> [@robardin](#):
>
> Not being a roto-player or a Sabermetrician, where would one find stats like “VORP” (which I believe is Value Over Replacement Player, where Replacement = statistically normalized player at that position)?

Here’s Baseball Prospectus’ stats front page - they separate position players from the pitchers. Not sure where you’d get salaries in one handy location.

[http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=68798](http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=68798)

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**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2009, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-athletes-actually-give-110-or-more/520211/6 "2009-12-06T23:01:58Z")

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Eh, high schoolers play 110%. Just a platitude.

Tony Romo was though, till he got his renegotiation.