Run a Google search for :Derek Jeter" and “defense” and you get almost 700,000 results. Run a Google search for "Chipper Jones"
and you get fewer than 450,000 results. I suppose now you can bump each
of those up by one. The matter of Jeter’s defense is a tired, tired
topic, and it was a tired, tired topic years ago. Personally, I try to
avoid tired topics. But in this instance, I think there’s
something;
something not enough attention has been paid to on account of the
raging argument elsewhere.
People have argued about only part of the
story.
You all should be familiar with the position of the advanced
defensive metrics like DRS and UZR. It’s because of those metrics that
an argument exists in the first place. Jeter loyalists have continued to
insist he was at least a solid defensive shortstop in the past. UZR has
disagreed, and DRS has more extremely disagreed, as they’ve both
evaluated Jeter as subpar for the position. On the occasion of Jeter’s
retirement announcement, there were people who couldn’t help but make
fun of his defensive ability, and he’s been the butt of such jokes for
much of his career. Jeter’s often been described as an awful defensive
shortstop, or as something along those lines. While there’s been some
basis for this, though, one of the key words in that description is
“shortstop.”
Let’s say you’re a professional pie-eater. Congratulations! You’re
one of the lucky ones! You’re able to reliably consume three pies in a
timed sitting. Among the pie-eating circuit, this makes you more or less
average. In one competition, against weaker foes, you eat your three
pies, and no one else eats more than two. You’ve won! Then you move on
to another, more challenging competition. Against stronger foes, you eat
your three pies, but most everyone else eats
four. You’ve
lost. Your ability level was exactly the same, but the peers you were
matched up against were better than the peers before, so relatively
speaking, you looked worse.
This has, in essence, been Jeter’s dilemma. Statistically, he’s been a
below-average defensive shortstop, and everybody knows that. He’s also
been a shortstop for his entire career, and shortstops are above-average
defenders, relative to the Major League Baseball player pool. So on the
one hand, Jeter’s been one of the worst. But on the other, he’s been
one of the worst out of the best, so it’s important remember defensive
numbers come within a certain positional context. Maybe Jeter’s like the
worst beer from an excellent brewery.
In case you haven’t been able to look ahead, this whole post is
basically just going to call attention to Jeter’s Defense rating. Every
player on FanGraphs gets a Fielding rating, and a Positional rating.
Combine them and you get the Defense rating, which allows for a direct
comparison of players across different positions. Most of the talk about
Jeter has had to do with the Fielding rating. That paints an incomplete
picture.
In the past 50 years, 507 different players have batted at least
5,000 times. Sort by Fielding-per-150-games, and you find Jeter in 487th
place, around names like Jay Buhner
,Micheal Young
and Bobby Bonilla
. However, sort by Positional-per-150-games, and you find Jeter in 57th place, around names like Cal Ripken, Rafael Furcal and Omar Vizquel
. This is the positional adjustment, and Jeter gets major points for being a shortstop — a position of considerable difficulty.
Sort by Defense-per-150-games, and you find Jeter in 252nd place. In
other words, he’s right in the middle of the pack, near guys like Jeff Blauser, Andre Dawson, and Willie McGee. He comes out at -1.5 runs on that scale. He’s ahead of John Olerud. He’s ahead of Mark Grace and Rickey Henderson and Moises Alou. Jeter has drawn the criticism that he’s cost his team runs by playing a
lousy shortstop, but overall he’s still been a reasonably valuable
defensive player. That’s just because of his reliability at a difficult
position.
The numbers they have at Baseball-Reference like Jeter less, and if
you use their numbers for those same 507 guys in the past 50 years, you
find Jeter in 341st place. It’s a worse place, to be sure, but it’s
certainly not a dreadful place. And Jeter’s right by names like Nick Markakis and Shannon Stewart . He’s ahead of Jeff Bagwell. . And of course, we’re loyal to the numbers we have right here, so I look at these as a backup.
Let’s say you only want to know about the era during which we’ve had
UZR. This stretches from 2002 to 2013, and during that span, 322 players
have batted at least 2,500 times. Keep in mind this window ignores
Jeter’s youngest years. Sort by Fielding-per-150-games, and you find
Jeter in 280th place. Sort by Positional-per-150-games, and you find
Jeter in 50th place. Sort by Defense-per-150-games, and you find Jeter
in 161st place. Again, right in the middle. His spreadsheet neighbors
include Andrew McCutcheon, Eric Byrnes and Ronnie Belliard and
I feel like I’d just be repeating myself if I noted the significance of
this. There’s a difference between criticizing Jeter as a defensive
shortstop, and criticizing Jeter as a defensive player.
To the eyes, Jeter can be pretty convincingly OK. At least, that has
to be the takeaway from so many Yankees fans insisting he’s been fine.
Part of that is because Yankees fans haven’t been able to watch any
other Yankees shortstops. Part of it is because his missed plays aren’t
egregious. Part of it is because the bar for defensive shortstops is
really high, and so even a weaker shortstop can look playable. And part
of it is because Jeter has long been so athletic, because his position
has demanded it, because his position has been among the most demanding.
He’s looked like he belongs on the field. That’s mostly because he has.
I get that Derek Jeter is polarizing, and I get that it’s fun to
criticize a player the media’s never stopped putting on a pedestal. It’s
certainly worthwhile to note Jeter hasn’t been a great defensive
shortstop. While he’ll have absolutely zero trouble getting into the
Hall of Fame, defense still is important when it comes to our
understanding of what he’s been as a player. Jeter has had his on-field
shortcomings. But it’s also important to not get carried away.
For his
position, Jeter’s been one of the game’s worse defensive players. His
position has included some of the very best defensive players in
baseball. In terms of overall value, those about negate one another. In
the end, the most correct opinion of Jeter’s defensive ability is, `Hey,
he’s been all right.’
