Chasing Honus Wagner

Is Derek Jeter an All-Time Great?

Ever heard of Sam Rice?

Rice played for the Washington Senators from 1915 to 1933, and in that time amassed 2,987 hits. He hit .322, stole 352 bases, and must have had a great arm: only 4 right fielders in history have thrown more guys out.

But those 2,987 hits...  Old Sam just missed 3,000, and the baseball world has entirely forgotten him. Didn't even make the Hall of Fame till the Veterans Committee voted him in thirty years after he retired.

13 hits.  One more hit a year.  In Crash Davis' words, "just one extra flare...just one - a gorp... you get a groundball, you get a groundball with eyes... you get a dying quail, just one more dying quail...", and Sam Rice would have 3,000 hits.

And you'd have heard of him.  Because in baseball, we care about milestones.  We care about them a lot.

I bring this up because our old friend Derek Jeter announced his retirement this Spring.  He has one more season to brush up the back of his baseball card, to submit his final report card to Baseball Posterity.

He's in no danger of being forgotten like poor old Sam.  He's got his 3,000 hits.  Plus 5 World Series rings, 13 All-Star games, $250 million in career earnings, and 5 dubiously earned Gold Glove awards.  He's a lock for the Hall of Fame.

But is he, as ESPN (and many others have) asked, an All-Time Great?*

*  If you're one of those people who believe this sort of argument/debate is pointless, well, you're wrong.  Every sports argument, every sports conversation ever had, is ultimately about one thing:  How good is X?  How good is that player, play, team, game, season, coach, GM, sport, rule, manager, call, skill, prospect, announcer, camera angle?  And the best sports conversations, the most enduring ones, are the All-Time Great discussions.  Jeter, because of his vast legions of worshipers and critics, is, along with Brady vs. Manning, the best sports debate of our time.  


In 2009, I argued that he'd need to get 3,516 hits to claim that status.  Jeter critics have long argued that Jeter has too few individual accomplishments to rank among the best of the best.  No MVPs, no batting titles, no home run titles.  And for most of his career, he wasn't even the best shortstop in the league, as guys like A-Rod, Nomar, Tejada, Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez - heck, even guys like Rafael Furcal and Erick Aybar - had better seasons.  

Derek Jeter does have one all-time great skill though:  getting hits.  Yes, he's had a TON of plate appearances*, but he hit for a very good average his whole career, and all those dying quails add up. (And man, even his biggest fans would acknowledge, he was the King of the Dying Quail.)

* he led the league 5 times in plate appearances, and had over 700 ten times!  If you want to be an all-time hit leader, I strongly encourage you to stay healthy, and hit at the top of an order that scores 900 runs a year.

I argued that if Jeter reached 3,516 hits he'd pass Tris Speaker, and crack the Top 5 all-time, earning him All Time Great status.  In fact, the math showed that if, like Pete Rose, he stayed healthy and played into his 40's, he had an outside shot at 4,000 hits.

The next two years he got 341 hits, including his 3000th.  And he had a fantastic 2012 campaign, leading the league with 216 hits.  But 2013 was lost to injury and he announced his retirement for the end of the 2014 season.

Tris Speaker is 198 hits away.  It's possible, given his 216 hits only 2 years ago, but he turns 40 in June and is coming off major injury.

But there's another interesting target in reach:  Honus Wagner.  The Flying Dutchman had 3,420 hits, and moderately healthy season from Jeter will give him the 104 hits he needs to catch him, making him the shortstop with the most hits all time.

You still couldn't put his accomplishments quite up there with Wagner.  Like other members of the GOAT Club (Greatest of All Time), old Honus' trophy cabinet is overflowing with individual titles.  He won 8 batting titles, had enough pop to lead the league in slugging 5 times (no homers but truckloads of doubles and triples), and took the stolen base crown 5 times.

But if Mr. November picks up his 3,421st hit sometime this summer, he can show up at the GOAT Club meeting, turn to all his critics and say....well, something bland and boring, because that's what he always says.

But he will belong.

Maybe Not Next Year

These are tough times for Yankee haters.

Coming into the 2013 season, there was abundant evidence that the Yankees glorious 18-year run was finally coming to a close. As all baseball fans know, from 1996 to 2012, the Bronx Bombers won 5 world championships, 7 AL titles, and made 17 playoff appearances.  How did they do this?

1. The simultaneous appearance of 4 great farm product players: Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, and Posada.  That's two lock Hall of Famers and two perennial All-Stars, arguably the greatest crop of players ever produced by one team in one year.
2. The greatest spending spree in American sports history.  From 1999 through 2009 the Yankees signed or traded for: Clemens, Mussina, Giambi, Brown, A-Rod, Randy Johnson, Texeira, and Sabathia.  They outspent everyone for the best international talent (Contreras, Matsui, El Duque).  They did this while keeping the 4 guys above (except for a brief Pettitte Houston trip). If there was an expensive available player, the Yankees got him, and their payroll was regularly $50 million or more higher than the 2nd highest paid team.
3. The Wild Card era.  The Yankees run started in 95, the first year of the Wild Card era, so even when the Yankees weren't dominant, they still made the playoffs.   They had 7 playoff appearances during this period that would have been misses before 1994, and won the Series two of those times*.

* four Wild Cards, and three seasons in which the Indians, formerly of the AL East, had a better record.  In 1996 and 2000 the Yankees won the World Series with regular season records that would've missed the playoffs only a few years earlier.  

But that's all over right?  Even before the great injury avalanche of 2013, the Yankees had seemingly returned to the pack.  Posada had retired, Texeira was in decline, and three aging superstars - Jeter, A-Rod, and Mariano - were in various stages of return from 2012 injuries.

The Wild Card system isn't going anywhere, but in the 19 seasons since the Jeter/Mariano/Pettitte/Posada bounty (not to mention Bernie Williams a few years earlier), the Yankee farm system has produced one great player (Robinson Cano).  And the Steinbrenner boys have said they don't plan on quite outspending their competition as much as dear old Dad.  

Things were already looking bad when the Yankees got serious about putting together the Greatest Disabled List Ever. Texeira went down.  Jeter's backup and his backup's backup. Youkilis, Pettitte, Nova, Joba and Hughes.   Granderson got hurt in spring training, returned for a few days, and got hurt again.

And the uninjured guys were, you know, old.  Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Kuroda, Vernon Wells, and Mariano Rivera are between 35 and 43 years old.

Last night the Yankee starting lineup included David Adams, Reid Bringnac, and Chris Stewart.  If you knew who those people were before this year, you're a more devoted Fantasy baseball player than I am.

So naturally the Yankees have the 5th best record in major league baseball!

What does all this mean?  Part of me is tempted to make the regression to the mean argument.  I mean, you can't keep fielding a team of 39 year old pitchers, those three guys above, and Lyle Overbay and win 95 games, right?  A team that features Brett Gardner as its 2nd best hitter doesn't make the playoffs, right?  I mean, he's a good player, but this is the frickin' Yankees!

And Brian Cashman has quite a task ahead of him the next few years.  Over the next couple years he's going to need: a first baseman, shortstop, third baseman, catcher, right fielder, closer, and a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th starter.

Where he's going to find these people?  The Yankee farm system isn't producing the way it used to.  Other teams have caught up in international scouting.  And the free agent talent isn't there.  Many of the best players in baseball - Votto, Braun, Trout, Cabrera, Fielder, Wright, Tulowitzki, Harper, McCutcheon - are signed for years to come.

But I've been burned before.  The Yankees exist in an alternate universe where the normal laws of baseball don't apply.  I refuse to allow myself hope.

But then again, this happened last night...

I Got Thome

The other day, the great Joe Posnanski* wrote a piece about how in sports we don't need a reason to choose what we celebrate, we just need a consensus. In other words, if we all agree that hitting streaks are worth celebrating, we celebrate them. But if we all agree that 10,000 rebounds, a feat achieved by 34 men, isn't such a big deal, we don't celebrate them.

* When I do these little asterisk/italics things, I am using a Posnanski invention called the Posterisk. It is superior to parenthesis and footnotes, and I hope it catches on.

As it turns out, his timing was perfect. Because last night Jim Thome hit his 599th and 600th home runs. It was an astonishingly rare achievement, one of the rarest in sports. Only 8 men in baseball history have accomplished the feat, and the other 7 are baseball legends, admitted steroid users, or both.

And yet...the world yawned. There will be no HBO special commemorating his chase for 600. His achievement did not pass the Lucille Test. Few people marveled at the way he achieved it, being the first man to hit back-to-back jacks to get to a six-pack.

Most importantly, ESPN's SportsCenter this morning followed up the highlight of this game with a segment titled "Hall of Famer?" The report, by Tim Kurkjian, concluded he was a Hall of Famer. But that's quite a question mark. 600 homers does not punch your ticket to the Hall.

This is in stark contrast to the celebration around Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit. 3,000 hits is a much more common achievement. 28 guys have gotten to that level.*

* In a related note, sometime this September Clinton Portis will become the 26th NFL player to rush for 10,000 yards. Will anyone care?

In fact one can argue Thome has been a better player than Jeter. He's almost certainly a better hitter. He got to his 600th homer with far fewer (around 900) plate appearances than Jeter needed for 3000. He has a lower batting average (.312 to .277), but a higher On-Base Percentage (.403 to .383) and a much higher slugging % (.557 to .449).

Of course, Jeter was a far superior fielder and a much better base runner (335 stolen bases to 19). The Captain was not quite the October superhero people think he was, but he was a very good post-season player, whereas Thome wasn't. Most importantly, Jeter is the rare modern athlete who has spent his entire career with one team, so his connection to that fan base is greater, certainly, than Thome is to Minnesota, or even Cleveland.

The point here isn't to bash Jeter, who deserves the credit he received. It's to wonder why Thome's far rarer achievement is virtually ignored.

It's not because he's a bad guy - in fact by all accounts he's a great guy. According to Joe Pos, he's won the Clemente Award and the Gehrig Award. He's been voted the nicest guy in baseball by his peers. And it has something to do with the fact that homers have been devalued in our post-Bonds era.

But still...there's a good chance that in about 8 or 9 years, Jeter will be cruising to Cooperstown as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And Jim Thome might be on his 3rd year trying to get in. Will he be joining him?

Note:

About the name of this post...in 1992 my friends and I founded the Madisox Fantasy Baseball League. (Odd Couple fans know the name comes from an episode involving television's greatest sportswriter). That first year, well, the details are hazy but my buddy Costello drafted this Indians prospect named Jim Thome. Later, somebody tried to draft Thome but Costello, looking over his roster, said, "No, I got Thome. I definitely got Thome." Only he pronounced it with a Th- sound, rhyming with home. Anyway, "I got Thome" is one of the catchphrases of our league, and has been repeated at every draft since.

Congratulations, Mr. Jeter

I have to admit that even I, a card-carrying Yankee hater and full-fledged member of the "Jeter is Overrated Club", got a kick out of that 5-for-5, dinger for 3k, game-winning RBI performance on Saturday.

It's true that if Michael Kay said "the Captain" one more time, with that mix of teen-girl breathlessness and religious awe that one associates with lunatic cult members, I would have thrown my beer at the television screen.

But at the end of the day, I am a) a reader and writer who loves a great story, and that was an amazing story, and b) a baseball fan who revels in the statistical oddities of the sport. And the idea that Derek Jeter, who had hit a homer in precisely 1 of the previous 132 Yankee games (including post-season) would homer for his 3000th hit, is a statistical oddity of the highest order. Toss in 4 other hits and a game-winning RBI, and you have one of the most improbable days in baseball history. What baseball fan wouldn't love that?

(You buying any of this?)

Anyway, in honor of 3000, I'm linking to my piece entitled Chasing Tris Speaker, in which I make some attempt to estimate Jeter's career hit totals, and explain how important they are to his legacy. The short version is this: Jeter needs 516 hits to catch and pass Speaker, which would put him in the Top 5 all time. That's 171 hits over 3 full seasons, meaning he'd need to stay healthy and reasonably productive through his current contract, and get at least one more season in the bigs.

The Iron Clipper

Which of the following Yankee Dynasties was the greatest ever?

+ The Ruth/Gehrig Yankees
+ The Joe DiMaggio Yankees
+ The Mantle/Berra Yankees
+ The Reggie/Billy Yankees
+ The Jeter/Mariano Yankees

(Yeah, it’s questionable including Reggie/Billy since 2 titles does not a Dynasty make. But I think that 2 consecutive titles qualifies, otherwise you couldn’t include the Big Red Machine. If you disagree, write your own damn blog.)

The answer is: None of the Above. At least according to David Schoenfield, who ranked all 27 Yankee champions on ESPN’s Page 2 this week.

Extrapolating a bit from the Page 2 list, the greatest Yankee dynasty was one that, quite frankly, I didn’t know existed: the Gehrig/DiMaggio Yankees, which won 4 consecutive World Series from 1936 to 1939.

(Yeah, it’s questionable including 1939, since Gehrig gave his famous “luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech on April 30th after playing in only 8 games. But I’m going to count it since his spirit was on that team. If you disagree, write your own damn blog.)

Anyway, like most people I associate Gehrig with Ruth, and think of Joltin’ Joe as sort of being on his own. It surprised me to learn that the Iron Horse and the Yankee Clipper were teammates for nearly four seasons, from 1936 to 1939, and the Yankees won the World Series in every one of those years. And it further surprised me to see Page 2 rank those 4 teams as being 4 of the 8 greatest Yankee champs ever – mixed in with the ‘27 (#2), 98’ (#3), ’53 (#6), and ‘32 (#7).

As I mentioned in my Jeter piece a few weeks back, I think Gehrig is the most underrated of the Yankee greats, and this information only strengthens that opinion. He won 3 titles with Ruth and 3 titles with DiMaggio (not counting 39). He had 13 monster seasons in a row. Mix in the fact that he was born, raised, educated, played and died in New York City and I think it’s a shame that he is not accorded quite the status of Ruth, DiMaggio, Mantle and Jeter.

As for me, the fact that I, as a card-carrying Yankee hater, can write a piece like this only moments after another title, just shows how mature I’ve become in my old age. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to re-watch the entire 2000 World Series on DVD, and try to figure out how my beloved Mets lost to the crappiest Yankee champ ever.

Update: The New York Times on Sunday wrote a similar piece as ESPN, ranking all 27 champions. And while they didn't agree on every point, there was definitely some cross-over, with the 1939 team ranked 2nd, and the other Gehrig/DiMaggio teams in the Top 9. Who knew?

The Winter Classic

The Yankees equipment manager, Rob Cucuzza, is getting ready for the playoffs. He’s gathering up dozens of pairs of polypropylene* thermal underwear, cold weather batting gloves made with Aegis Micro Shield technologies, officially licensed New York Yankees earmuffs, and fur-lined parkas for the coaching staffs.

*The polypropylene material used in some cold weather gear was developed by a Nobel Prize winner, back when Nobel Prize winners had to, you know, do something in order to win

Mr. Cucuzza has a collection of high-tech cold weather gear that would make Ernest Shackleton weep with envy. And he’s gonna need it because it’s frickin’ cold in New York. As Game 1 of the ALCS starts tonight, the temperature is forecast for 42 degrees, lower with the wind chill. And the baseball playoffs are still scheduled to go another two and a half weeks.

It wasn’t always this way. Babe Ruth and the 1927 Yankees won the World Series on October 8th. Mickey Mantle celebrated the 1956 title on October 10th, and that series went the distance. In 1978, Reggie Jackson had earned his Mr. October moniker by the 17th, and that included an ALCS. Heck, even Derek Jeter and the 1996 Yanks - the first Yankee team to win a championship in the Wild Card era - had wrapped things up by October 26th.

This year, the World Series won’t even start until October 28th. Even if it’s a sweep, it’s guaranteed to go until November. If it goes the distance, Game 7 will be on November 5th. If the Yankees win, they’ll have to combine the Canyon of Heroes parade with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. (They'll probably let Jeter ride in Santa's sleigh, and Yankee fans will truly believe he was more clutch than St. Nick)

Luckily, I’m not the kind of guy who just sits around and complains about the old days. I bring solutions. And I know how to fix baseball.

Cold Teams
But first, a little more complaining, because cold weather is only part of baseball’s problem. The other, more insidious problem, is that crappy teams keep winning the World Series. Think I’m kidding? Let’s look at recent history.

2006 Cardinals - LaRussa's team scratched out 83 wins during the regular season, had the lowest winning % of all 8 playoff teams, and a losing record in August and September. But they got hot for a couple of weeks and were crowned World Champion.

2004 Red Sox - a very good team, but not good enough to win the AL East. In 2004 they became the 4th Wild Card team in 7 years to win the Series.

2003 Marlins - this time of year, all the "experts", from Steve Phillips to Mike Francesa to the nameless newspaper guys, give their "predictions" about who will win the World Series. The 03 Marlins are a constant reminder as to why these predictions are useless, as everyone had them rated 8 out of 8 of playoff contenders that year.

2000 Yankees - the worst regular season team of the Torre era. They won 87 games, lowest of all the playoff teams, and fewer than every Yankee team since. But the AL East wasn’t very good that year, and 87 wins was good enough for a divisional title. Most years, this team wouldn't have made the playoffs.

Fixing Baseball
How, you are wondering, will I kill both birds with one stone, hit both balls with one bat, field both grounders with one glove? Easy - end the regular season on the last Sunday of September, and add another Wild Card team. Here are the Rules of the FreeTime Playoff system:

1. No matter what, the season ends on the last Sunday in September. If the last Sunday is September 25, that is when the season ends. If the last Sunday is September 30, that is when the season ends. No nonsense like this year when regular season games were being played on October 4.
2. To accommodate rule 1, if necessary the season will start in late March, add more day/night doubleheaders, and/or take fewer days off.
3. All Northern teams will open up on the road. Send the Phillies and Mets down to Miami and Atlanta for the first week of the season.
4. Now, comes the radical part: add a Wild Card team and a round of playoffs to each league.
5. The regular season ends on the last Sunday in September; immediately following the two Wild Cards in each league will play a Mon-Wed 3-game series.
6. The winner of that series - road-weary and pitching-depleted - will immediately fly to the home city of the team with the best record in the league to start the Divisional Series on Thursday.
7. At this point, we essentially resume the same schedule we have now. But because our regular season has ended in September, we have guaranteed the playoffs will not extend into November.

The main benefits of this system should be obvious:

1. An extra Wild Card team keeps more cities interested in baseball late.
2. However, we have made it MUCH harder for a Wild Card to advance. The punishing schedule should eliminate most mediocre Wild Cards going all the way.
3. We have restored something resembling the old Pennant Race. The reward for League Best Record - getting to play a tired, depleted Wild Card team - has real value, rewards season long success, and makes the likelihood of the worthiest team winning higher.
4. The owners and television - Gods that must be given tribute - get their due. More playoff games, a greater likelihood of great teams advancing, and more meaningful September games for more teams.
5. The World Series is finished in October - as God and Kenesaw Mountain Landis intended.

Bob Costas and other "purists" will hate this. But remember something about the purists - they don't care whether or not your team is playing meaningful September games because they get to go to the action wherever it is.

And ignore everyone who complains about the power of television. Television wants the most fans possible to see the games - a desire that dovetails with the needs of the most fans, no? Costas might like afternoon playoff games, but the rest of us have to go to work.

And as for the Yankees and Angels, bundle up. It's cold out there.

Note: This is part of the Volunteer Commissioner series, in which I graciously fix problems in various sports. The others posts in the series are:

Fixing Softball (Women's softball)

The Loser's Out Manifesto (Pick-up basketball)

The Beautiful Game's Flaw (soccer)

The Slowest Game (lacrosse).

Swimming is Boring (Swimming)

You're welcome.

Chasing Tris Speaker

My Final Word on Derek Jeter

On August 16th, Derek Jeter had 3 hits. Two of them were significant as he tied and passed Luis Aparicio for the most hits by a shortstop. Three weeks later he passed Lou Gehrig on the all-time Yankee hits list.

Except for a few passing references, I haven’t spoken much about Derek Jeter on this site. But among my friends and email correspondents, I am well known as a boorish and boring critic of The Great Mr. November. His “records” got me thinking about his lifetime statistics, and made me realize my opinion of him is improving, even if I don’t shy away from my earlier criticisms.

My Jeter Obsession has gone through 3 phases:

Phase 1: The Big Three – 1996-1999
In the late 1990’s, baseball fans noticed the American League had 3 great young shortstops – Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Nomar Garciaparra. When Miguel Tejada hit 30 homers and drove in 115 runs in 2000, the group added a fourth member, three in the AL East. It was a bounty of greatness at a position that had seen few truly great hitters.

Jeter immediately became the biggest star. A-Rod was putting up better numbers (and was rumored to be a better fielder) but was stuck in the baseball backwater of Seattle. Nomar was in Boston, but the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry was nowhere near as hot in the late 90’s as it is now, and Nomar played in relative obscurity. Jeter, meanwhile, playing on four championship teams for the most famous sports franchise on earth, was a fixture on national television.

Plus, he was handsome, graceful, charming – a media and fan favorite. This combination launched him to national fame and convinced many baseball fans he was actually better than A-Rod and Nomar.

Which, naturally, was madness. Here are the seasonal averages of the Big 3 from 1996-1999:

Jeter: .325 BA, 17 HRs, 82 RBIs, 124 Rs, 17 SBs

A-Rod: .304 BA, 37 HRs, 113 RBIs, 117 Rs, 28 SBs

Nomar: .337 BA, 28 HRs, 96 RBIs, 110 Rs, 13 SBs

Three excellent players obviously. You can make a case, I suppose, that the late 90’s Jeter was as good as the others, but this would be a novel baseball argument. Nomar hit for more power and a higher average. A-Rod hit for far more power, stole a few more bases, and was no slouch in average. You’d need to be a Yankee fan or a lazy announcer to think Jeter was the best of the three.

Still, the young Jeter, through the 2001 season, was a genuinely great hitter, even if he wasn’t quite as great as his rivals.

Phase 2: Stealth Decline and Attack of the Stats Geeks, 2002 - 2008
Two things happened in the first decade of the 21st century – both largely unnoticed by Madison Avenue and the average fan, but of keen interest to close watchers of baseball statistics. First, Derek Jeter saw a steady decline in his hitting, and second, he became the whipping boy for a new breed of stats geeks called Sabermetricians.

Attack of the Sabermetricians
Let’s take the sabermetricians first. Armed with calculators, spreadsheets, and advanced degrees in statistical analysis, they began creating and popularizing a form of statistical analysis that went way beyond the traditional triple crown categories. They had been around a while – the patron saint Bill James published his first Baseball Abstract in 1977 and his disciple Rob Neyer had been writing a popular column on ESPN.com since 1996. But it was Michael Lewis’ 2003 bestseller Moneyball, about the Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane and his adoption of these new metrics, that introduced the broader baseball world to things like OPS, Win Shares, and Pythagorean Winning Percentage.

Jeter became an irresistible target for the Moneyball crowd. Stats geeks, more than anything else, seek to bring down the overrated and rise up the underrated. Jeter, through no fault of his own, was the most lavishly praised player in baseball.

Announcers gushed over every thing he did - he'd get more praise for hitting a ground ball out that moved a runner over than the next guy would get for doubling the runner home. He appeared in commercials with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer, two guys who were indisputably the best in the world in what they did*. Fans, even non-Yankee fans, seemed to truly believe that Jeter’s singles were more valuable than A-Rod’s homers.

* I used to imagine Albert Pujols or Vladimir Guererro, sitting at home after another .340/40 homer season, wondering why a guy who hit .310 with 14 homers was appearing in Gatorade commercials with Michael Jordan while they were stuck doing spots for local auto dealers.

But the other reason stats geeks wrote so damn much about Derek Jeter is that, well, he’s Derek Jeter. He was the most famous player on the most famous team in baseball. An article claiming he was a statistically horrible fielder was more likely find a larger audience than, say, an article on how Kevin Youkilis has a higher VORP than Carlos Delgado.

The Stealth Decline
But the more interesting thing, one that to this day I’m amazed so few people have noticed, is that he ceased to be a great hitter.

In 1999, Derek Jeter had a genuinely great season, based on traditional statistics, sabermetric statistics, or any other way you want to measure it. In the traditional Triple Crown categories he hit .349 with 24 homers and 102 RBIs. For the sabermetricians, he had an .OPS of .989 - higher than ARod and higher than that year's AL MVP, Ivan Rodriguez (though not nearly as high as Nomar, who had a spectacular season).

He was 25 years old, an age when most guys have yet to reach the peak of their powers. But it turns out Jeter had maxed out. He took a step back in 2000, and again in 2001, and continued to decline through the 2005 season. He bounced back a bit in 2006, and and remained a good player, even a very good one. But the promise of power shown in those 24 homers went away, he didn’t seriously threaten for another batting title, and his OPS showed a steady year-on-year decline. Quite simply, he was not a great hitter.

For a comparison, click here and here, and compare Jeter to Gehrig. Gehrig had his breakout season in 1927, at age 24. It was an eye-popping season – he hit .373 with 47 homers, 175 RBIs and an OPS of 1.240. Wow. But he hadn’t peaked – he followed it up with 11 more spectacular seasons – each one better than Jeter’s best season. He had a good season in 1938 at age 35, and then had his career cut short by disease.

Jeter, by contrast, spent his age 26 through 35 seasons as a good, but not great hitter, that never approached the across-the-board success of his age 25 season.

Despite the decline, announcers, sportswriters and fans breathlessly spoke of Jeter as if he was the same great hitter that burst on the scene in the late 90’s.

Phase 3: The Rethinking Things Era

As the 2005 season was closing, Derek Jeter was on his way to becoming the most overrated player in the history of American sports.

Imagine a gathering of the Baseball Gods, Hitters’ Division. There is Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez.

And in walks Derek Jeter. He alone would have no home run titles or batting titles. His best MVP performance was a distant 3rd – despite the luck of always playing on a playoff team. His lifetime average is a shade over .300. He led the league in Hits one year, but led in Plate Appearances that year too. He led the league in Runs Scored once, but playing leadoff for the Yankees tends to help that out.

In fact, there is only one individual statistic that Derek Jeter has consistently placed in the Top 10 in the league in: Salary. Since 2000, he has ranged from 3rd to 6th in that coveted individual category.

But…but…something else happened in the intervening years. A bunch of things, actually. Alex Rodriguez was outed as a steroid user. So was Tejada. Nomar Garciaparra had a series of injuries and became a backup. And Derek Jeter just kept getting hits. Lots of them. Every year.

Not as many as Ichiro. And on the all-time list he still trails such such non Hall of Famers as Al Oliver, Vada Pinson, Andre Dawson, and Harold Baines.

But, he’s only 35 and having his best season since 1999. He has more hits than Pete Rose - the all-time leader at 4,256 - had at the same age. I charted out Jeter’s shot at reaching the highest levels of the hit list. And here are my conclusions:

• Rose's record is in reach, but he'd need to average 175 hits a year till he's 44


• Joining Rose and Ty Cobb in the 4,000 hit club is more achievable - though it probably still means avoiding injury and playing well into his 40's


• Much more achievable and interesting, is 3,500. Only five players are on that list: Rose, Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, and Tris Speaker


• And finally, if he sticks around for 3,500, he only needs 15 more to pass Tris Speaker, and place him in the Top 5

Projecting the Captain's Legacy

All in all, Derek Jeter is the weakest hitter to ever be mentioned as one of the all-time greats. But if he pursues, catches, and passes Tris Speaker and breaks into the Top 5 hit list, I promise I will declare him to stand proudly with the elite.

If not - he will assume a proud place among the lesser Hall of Famers, with Tony Gwynn and Robin Yount, rather than Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. And I'll be the jerk in the corner pointing out that Yount had two MVPs and Gwynn had 8 batting titles, whereas Jeter needed Mariano and 23 other guys to get him his jewelry.

Yanks & Rebs

What do Robert E. Lee and Derek Jeter have in common?


For a couple years now I’ve been wrestling with an important question - why do Yankee fans hate Alex Rodriguez so much?

It’s not because of the steroids. He was being booed at Yankee Stadium long before the steroids story broke. And admitted steroids users like Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi have been welcomed back with open arms.

It’s not because he hasn’t won a championship. Don Mattingly never won a championship or even led his team to the playoffs, and is far more beloved than many players who did.

It’s not because he hasn’t performed up to expectations. He wins the MVP every other year.

It’s not because he doesn’t play hard.

It’s not because he’s a really bad guy. Yeah, he has some annoying personality traits, but he doesn’t carry loaded guns to nightclubs or watch dogs kill each other for fun. Besides, arrogant image-conscious super-jocks are the norm, not the exception.

Is it because he has played poorly in the post-season? Yeah, that’s part of it, certainly. But the Yankees as a team have been so thoroughly awful in the post-season since Mariano blew the save in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, it wouldn’t have much mattered if he played a bit better. (The Yankees led that pivotal game 2-0 till the 5th inning, thanks to a 2-run home run by…Alex Rodriguez).

It’s tempting to say it is some combination of all the above. That would be an easy explanation and it’s mostly true. But there is a bigger picture here – and I think I know what it is.

The real reason Yankee fans hate Alex Rodriguez so much is that…well, let me tell you a story about the Civil War.

The Lost Cause

The Confederate States of America was, for a “country” that existed all of four years, quite a patriotic place. The Confederates believed in themselves. They believed in their cause. And they absolutely believed they were going to win the Civil War. It’s 150 years later and some folks in the Deep South still wave Confederate flags and put “Hell No, We Ain’t Forgettin’” bumper stickers on the back of their pick-ups. All this for a nation that spent its entire abbreviated existence fighting a war it lost.

So you can imagine how they felt right after the war ended. They were angry and confused and needed to blame someone. One could argue that Robert E. Lee would receive some of the blame. It was Lee, after all, who advocated the strategy that lost the war.

Lee believed the South should engage the Union in massive set-piece battles. If they won enough of them, he reasoned, the North would lose their will to fight, European nations would recognize the Confederacy, and the South would win the war.

And it nearly worked. At Bull Run and Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville the South showed they could whip the Yankees (the Union army kind; not the Bronx Bombers kind). War support in the Union wavered. European diplomats watched closely. But Lee, who was so gifted at getting the measure of his opponents on the field, underestimated the lanky bearded fellow in the White House. While Lee methodically ground down Northern war support with bullets and cannon balls, Abraham Lincoln built it back up with words, words, words. Union armies stayed on the field, Europe stayed on the sideline, and the South ultimately lost.

You can make a very good case that Lee should have followed the strategy that George Washington followed in the Revolutionary War. Washington knew he was outnumbered and outgunned. But he also knew that he didn’t have to win the war – he just had to avoid losing. So GW avoided set-piece battles at all costs, nipped at British ankles when he could, kept his armies in the field with minimal losses, and finally struck at Yorktown when absolutely everything was in his favor. Checkmate.

By contrast Lee, an aggressive and pugnacious general chose to fight one battle after another. And he lost. So he should get some of the blame, right? No way. Lee was the great hero of the South, the master of those early victories

Therefore, Jefferson Davis took the fall. He became a disgraced figure in the South in the years after the war. Not a single ounce of blame could fall upon the majestic silver-maned head of Robert E. Lee.

Yankee Doodle Dandy
What does any of this have to do with the booing Alex Rodriguez is treated to at Yankee Stadium?

Let me take you back to November 4, 2001, at approximately 11:38 PM EST. Mariano Rivera took the mound in the bottom of the 9th with a 2-1 lead in hand. Three more outs and the Yankees would win their 5th title in 6 years.

It was certain the Yankees were going to win that night, and it was starting to seem as if the Yankees were always going to win. Baseball would become like tennis in the Federer era – one great champion would win nearly every title.

But Mariano blew the save, of course and the Diamondbacks won. And the Angels won the next year and the Marlins the next. Then came the awful collapse against the Red Sox (2 more Mariano blown saves), then the 3 consecutive 1st round losses, and then finally missing the playoffs entirely in 2009.

Yankee fans are not happy about this. They were supposed to win all – or at least most – okay, some of the titles. But despite signing every monster free agent available, despite the gap between them and the 2nd highest paid team growing every year, they enter their 9th straight season without a title.

Who to blame? Well, one could argue that the likely candidates would be Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

How has Mariano done the last 8 years? In 2001 he became the first closer in baseball history to blow a Game 7, 9th inning save, the ultimate blown save. In the catastrophic 2004 ALCS collapse he blew not one, but two saves, both series-clinchers. Has he pitched well? Yes. Has been clutch? Ah, no.

As for Jeter, he reached his peak as a player in 1999 when he hit .349 with 24 homers and 102 RBIs. Or if you prefer sabermetric numbers an OBP/SLG/OPS of .438/.532/.970. Jeter dropped off in 2000 (.339/15/73 and .416/.481/.897) and again in 01 and 02. During the Yankees 8 year title drought Jeter has had only great offensive season (2006) and never hit again the way he did in 1999.

People are always telling me that you can’t measure Derek Jeter with statistics – you can only measure him by the little things he does to help his team win. I guess he hasn’t done quite as many little things the past eight years.

What you end up with is all this Yankee fan frustration and it has to go somewhere. But none of it can fall on the heads of Jeter and Rivera, or even Posada. Very little can fall on the heads of the lesser free agents the Yankees have collected this century. Ownership is essentially off the hook – the Boss has won too many titles and is too frail now to catch any heat. Management, in the form of Torre and Cashman, took some criticism, but they too have a bunch of titles they can claim some credit to.

And so all this rage falls on the head of one person – the guy who far and away has the best single season on the team every year. Alex Rodriguez is the Jefferson Davis of the New York Yankees.

And if you think this is a lot of words to expand on such a meaningless subject, let me just say I'm a Mets fan who remembers the 2000 World Series...and Hell No, We Ain't Forgettin'.