Derek Jeter: now and in history

I former co-worker of mine, who relishes a good sports discussion about as much as I do, sent me some messages on Facebook today:

Is Jeter still a good fielder? (Not WAS but IS even at 37)

When I replied that I'm sure he is what he has always been, namely a guy who catches everything he can reach and doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but not great range, he sent me the following:

I just read an article that made this big long argument that he had bad range last year. My reaction was to question why they bothered writing it. He was 36. I can understand arguing about 27-year old Jeter. That's one of the timeless baseball arguments. But at this age, I don't know who you're arguing against. (By the way, given some of the discussions we've had about Jeter over the years, this is about as close to a ringing endorsement of Jeter's defense as it gets. And if he just read that comment, I hope it brought a smile to his face.)

Also read a second article that made the pretty convincing statement: "Jeter=best overall career at shortstop all time"

I asked him to send me the links. This is the FanGraphs one about the fielding. And regarding the point about "who you're arguing against," it's a good point. As this Bleacher Report post shows, the cohort of 37-year-old shortstops is a very small one.

I will readily admit that I'm not really into most advanced stats, especially the defensive ones. I don't have a clue about how most of them are determined, and I have the bias that for at least the first several years after they became prominent, their only purposed seemed to be to say ... Derek Jeter can't field.

Watching him play for his whole career, I would say while his range has never been spectacular, like I said before, he catches what he reaches and doesn't make a lot of errors, which does have value. Maybe he doesn't take away a lot of hits, but he's also not giving teams four outs, either.

This tidbit from FanGraphs, however, really caught my attention.

“To the second base side — the side where more grounders are hit — the average shortstop fielded 65 percent over that area. Interestingly, Ryan and Jeter — the best and worst defensive shortstops in the league — had essentially the same percentage. Ryan was league average, at 65, and Jeter was at 64.
“Why did Jeter finish last at his position? Let’s look to other side of the line and break it down [by segments]. On balls hit to the third base-shortstop hole, MLB shortstops averaged 82 percent on balls hit to that [nearest] 7-foot slice. Ryan was at 86 and Jeter was at 73. You go another 7 feet to the right and the average is 61, with Ryan at 78 and Jeter at 40. Go another 7 feet and the average is 34 with Ryan at 56 and Jeter at 16. Go even deeper in the hole, where the average is just 8 percent, Ryan is at 13 and Jeter is at 0. He can’t make that play at all. Essentially, the whole difference between the best and worst shortstops was on balls hit to their right.”

I would have bet just about anything that statistics which determined Derek Jeter is a poor shortstop would base it on an inability to go to his left, but this says the exact opposite. Is this the reason why people think his range is all to his right?


As for the greatest of all time argument, my buddy couldn't find the original link, but found another article from Rob Neyer basically saying that if you squint hard enough, maybe a person could make the argument for Jeter, but his pick would be Honus Wagner.

But he also points out that using the statistics he used, most of the greatest players of all time were from decades ago, and makes the 1972 Miami Dolphins argument I hate so much, even though he still puts Wagner on top.

Baseball players today are generally a great deal more talented than their ancient forebears. I don't believe that Honus Wagner could win a job in the majors leagues (sic) today. I'm not sure he could play in the Texas League.
But if we head down that rabbit hole, Babe Ruth's not a major leaguer. Ted Williams might not be. And our discussion becomes a lot less interesting, I think, if we're restricted to players from the 1960s or '70s and later.
So Honus Wagner gets to stay. And I will argue that his numbers are so much better than any other shortstop's that he remains atop the class, even if he compiled those numbers roughly a century ago.

Meanwhile, Rick Weiner has the exact opposite historical bias in his Bleacher Report post, so much so that even I, as someone who puts more faith in traditional stats than most, can see where he's wrong.

While some may consider Wagner to be a better offensive player then Jeter, there is no disputing that Jeter's defense is superior to Wagner's—Wagner was an atrocious defensive shortstop. While his .931 fielding percentage through 1911 was considered to be excellent at the time, Wagner committed more than 50 errors in five different seasons, and  49 errors in three more, numbers that certainly don't show that solid defense is being played.

Simply put, strip out the differences for eras, the size and speed of athletes and the way the game is played, and the great ones would have been great within the context of the era no matter what. Honus Wagner would be great today, and Derek Jeter would have been great 80 or 90 years ago.

Who's the greatest? I don't know, but I'll put it this way. If we're picking teams, and I have the fifth pick among the shortstops Neyer says are the five best -- Jeter, Wagner, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith or Arky Vaughan -- I'm not going to cry over getting any of them.