Jeter to Retire After 2014 Season

[Bahama O's Fan]

Didn't Cal win the home run derby in his last year as well? Or did I dream that?

[Bahama O's Fan]

The playoff appearances and WS rings have a lot to do with it. Jeter was surrounded by the best teammates money could buy, and only missed the playoffs twice up until now, and one of the misses was last year when he was out almost all year.

I'm past being jealous of the attention Jeter has garnered in his career. I'm just glad that the Yankees are no longer invincible in our division. Hopefully they will never experience another run like they had while Jeter was there.

I think this is where the Jeter lore comes from; he was clutch in the post-season. You put Cal on those same Yankee teams and he would be considered a god today.

[25 Nuggets]

Ripken > Jeter. But really despite his mediocre defense Jeter is one of the great shortstops of all time. By BBR standards he is the 58th best position player of all time and right there in Luke Appling / Bill Dahlen territory. So he's borderline top five.

Great players nearly always peak in perceived greatness around the end of their career, and for a few years after they retire. This is Jeter's time, and I salute him.

[Bahama O's Fan]

Thanks for the good points. It sounds like Jeter's greatest gift has been his longevity/health at a top level. He has over 3,000 hits over 20 seasons, which averages 170 hits per year. Not bad. He averages 16HR and 78RBI per year, amazing for a guy living in the steroid era. His defense is, well, you know. I wonder if JJ Hardy would have played for the Yankees from 1995-2014 (and stayed healthy), how close he would have been to some of these same numbers?

[baltfan]

Wainwright probably thought it was safe to grove one since Jeter can barely hit it out of the infield.

[Sanfran327]

I agree 100%. I couldn't believe they had his mic live and allowed everyone to hear him talking with the catcher about how that AB was going to go down.

Kinda hard for me to tell, but it sounded like the catcher said "gonna let ya see one". If anyone else can decipher more, by all means, share.

[mark_beckens]

I think this is where the Jeter lore comes from; he was clutch in the post-season. You put Cal on those same Yankee teams and he would be considered a god today.

I don't agree. NYC is a big part to his popularity.

[Tx Oriole]

Why ???

All it does is confirm that in addition to whatever preferential treatment that Jeter already gets, he got even more from one of his peers ...... who was supposed to be trying to get him out, and helping his team (the National League) win the game, of which homefield advantage for the upcoming World Series rests upon.

It certainly doesn't make Wainwright look good (which I don't care about either way), and if anything, it doesn't make Jeter himself look great (which I enjoy) ....... maybe Jeter didn't necessarily do anything wrong, but he's made to look like a charity case.

It's an exhibition game. So everyone must have known Jeter was going to get a

fat pitch. So it really doesn't matter what Adam W. said. Jeter is a player I can

have respect for on the Yankees. IMO

[DrungoHazewood]

I had typed up a lengthy response comparing Ghandi, Lincoln, and Chuck Norris unfavorably to the great Jeter, but I thought better of it.

Jeter is currently tied for 57th in career rWAR with Harry Heilmann, the great Tigers outfielder of the 1920s. Half a win ahead of Raffy, about even with Frank Thomas, Adrian Beltre, and Jim Thome. Despite a skepticism about recent/active players all of those guys will go into the Hall and have very strong cases.

Among players with 1000+ games at shortstop Jeter is 10th in rWAR. HOF SS's range from 40 rWAR (Rizzuto) to 131 (Wagner), so Jeter is just in the top half.

It's interesting to think what his career might have been like in another city or cities. Arky Vaughn has almost exactly the same career value, and he was really underappreciated in his time, had to wait for the Vet's Committee to put him in many years after he retired. Alan Trammell has almost exactly the same value, but without the fawning media hype and constant play for 20 years on ESPN, and he's going to have to wait a long while to get in to Cooperstown. But Ernie Banks is in the same range and he waltzed into the Hall, so did Larkin and Ozzie and Robin Yount.

In fact, Yount might be Jeter's best comp. Yount had to move off short in mid-career, played a very long time, but of course spent his career in the anti-NY in Milwaukee. That's probably something like what Jeter's career would have been if he'd been drafted by the Mariners or Royals and didn't get that over-the-top, almost cartoonish portrayal in the NY media.

Jeter does have the lowest fielding runs total in history (by almost 50 runs) by bb-ref's figuring. Now, that's not the same as saying he's the worst fielder ever. Combine the positional adjustment with the fielding runs and he's nowhere close, although he's still about -100 runs in (defense + positional value). It does make for an unusual combination of skills. If he, for example, had managed to be an average defender at an average position like 2B/3B/RF his career could have been about 10 wins to the better. In (defense + position) Cal was actually a full Phil Rizzuto career better than Jeter (40+ wins), but Jeter was almost 20 wins better with the bat.

[PeteU]

Didn't Cal win the home run derby in his last year as well? Or did I dream that?

That was in 1991, the other year Cal hit a homerun and won the MVP in the game.

[DrungoHazewood]

Pretty sure the numbers that go into calculating a player's WAR are adjusted to the era that they played in.

They adjust for the context of the season, in other words they take into account levels of runs scored. This is why the best hitters of 1968 (extreme pitcher's era) rate on par with hitters in the midst of the 1994-2010 era.

But I don't believe most flavors of WAR have a timeline adjustment that takes into account the quality of the league. Otherwise Honus Wagner's or Cap Anson's careers in much more primitive, segregated leagues wouldn't still be among the best of all time.

[Don_Aase_Fan]

Jeter is, by far, the most overrated current player from a historical standpoint.

Was he even a top-3 player at his position at any point in his career?

He was an 8 win player (fWAR) in 1999; the highest of any position player. I personally don't think Jeter is overrated, as he's definitely one of the best shortstops of all time.

Like Boswell though, I take Ripken by a hair because his defense was so other-worldly.

[tettleton14]

Ripken > Jeter. But really despite his mediocre defense Jeter is one of the great shortstops of all time. By BBR standards he is the 58th best position player of all time and right there in Luke Appling / Bill Dahlen territory. So he's borderline top five.

Great players nearly always peak in perceived greatness around the end of their career, and for a few years after they retire. This is Jeter's time, and I salute him.

While I'll also go with Ripken by a hair, reading Boswell's chat makes me wonder if WAR has significantly undervalued Jeter's defense.

I saw the Jeter vs. Brendan Ryan video that exposed some of Jeter's weaknesses (mostly as an older player), but from somehow who saw him play vs. likely 500 times before he hit the age of 30 — I just have a hard time believing he was this ghastly defender. He really wasn't. I know data > naked eye, but not if the data's faulty. And I just can't believe that one of the most sure-handed shortstops ever (by fielding percentage) was also one of the worst defenders in the league. The two aren't mutually exclusive. And that someone with Jeter's athletic ability has one of the worst range ratings in history.

I hate the Yankees too, but I just can't accept Jeter — as he was in his prime — being a terrible defensive player.

Fangraphs also has Larry Walker being like 170 runs better defensively than Dave Winfield, who is considered one of the 5 worst defensive players of all-time through defensive WAR. How many of you saw Dave Winfield play? Was he one of the worst defensive players ever? Really.

[Orioles0615]

Over-Rated!!! Clap Clap Clap Clap

[PressBoxOnline]

How did Derek Jeter's final All-Star Game compare with Cal Ripken's final Midsummer Classic in 2001? http://www.pressboxonline.com/2014/07/14/remembering-cal-ripken-jrs-final-all-star-game