SABR Lahman Baseball Database 1871-2025, CSV edition. Copyright 1996-2025 SABR, via Sean Lahman's donation. Extracted and filtered for this educational packet. Licensed CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ . This adapted excerpt is distributed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: https://sabr.org/lahman-database/ ; documentation: https://sabr.box.com/shared/static/qtgh1olzcaauz5x234wqx8huixizff8l.txt .

HISTORICAL CUTOFF: December 22, 2001. The 2001 season results were public by this date through baseball's season records, but SABR's README revision history says Lahman version 4.5 containing 2001 season statistics was first released in March 2002. This is a RETROSPECTIVE reconstruction of the December 22 information set with a later Lahman edition restricted to 2001 rows, not a claim that this exact database or salary table had been distributed by that date. The edition contains later corrections to historical rows; do not infer contemporaneous knowledge of those revisions. No 2002 season rows or late-December agreement reports appear here.

Batting.csv: all 2001 Oakland batting stints, already acquired David Justice's 2001 line, and non-Oakland players with at least 250 plate appearances (AB + BB + HBP + SF) and a recorded 2001 salary no more than $1,500,000. Justice is a known acquisition, not a low-salary candidate. The remaining rows are a HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE SCREEN, not proof of free agency, available trades or 2002 contract offers. Salaries.csv: these players' 2001 salary rows plus the full 2001 Oakland salaried roster. Pitching.csv: 2001 Oakland Jason Isringhausen row. Teams.csv: 2001 Oakland totals. People.csv: player names from the rows and contemporaneous transaction excerpts, excluding future biographical fields. justice-trade.txt (MB4) and koch-trade.txt (MB5): completed transactions reported before cutoff. free-agent-snapshot.txt (MB6): December 9 contemporary list with four intersecting candidates, NOT proof they remain free agents on December 22 or an exhaustive later free-agent list. All newspaper files quote brief source fragments for criticism and link the originals.

Payroll is the sum of Oakland 2001 Salaries.csv rows, not a front-office cash budget or 2002 payroll. Historical salary is a proxy, not a 2002 offer or guaranteed signing. The Dec 22 decision should derive its hypothetical payroll ceiling from source salaries, separate an Isringhausen-sized pitching allowance from hitters, and account for the MB4 documented Justice salary and Mets payment. MB5 establishes that Billy Koch had ALREADY been acquired as a pitcher, with his future salary and acquisition costs unavailable from this excerpt. Neither trade belongs to the 2002 reveal. MB6 is a dated December 9 list, not a certification of December 22 contract rights or a complete market. All player names used in output must exist in People.csv. MB3's basic runs-created formula is TB * (H + BB) / (AB + BB), with TB = H + 2B + 2*3B + 3*HR. The estimate omits baserunning, double plays and other effects, does not promise observed runs, and individual player runs-created figures are not additive team runs created. Compute the team estimator on aggregate team batting totals.

Full upstream SABR CSV SHA-256 checksums from the official Box folder (the small excerpts have their own CHECKSUMS.csv): Batting.csv 007551e2fe3072aff396a8573de61dceabe14dbf8de20038c8b60e2abe16978f; Pitching.csv dbbe1baeb0a0fd81c1843a19eb4967e3d86c073fbe51bf96581bfd9faae35951; Salaries.csv a1d596d2f45112b5ea77623f4bfaa400a6ef0d325b52939ad96f4d53676ee845; Teams.csv 0e7afdd8b837d0edaca770a28817eec6613bd8255979c1be6e3f5827f4b88fd6; People.csv 9ee97110fc88b2c4ad72684577d696875035049e74a45cb93238458df8563c58. Official download folder: https://sabr.app.box.com/s/y1prhc795jk8zvmelfd3jq7tl389y6cd .
