As I'm sure all of you know, the University of Pennsylvania recently did a thorough study that concluded that Derek Jeter was one the worst shortstop in the majors. I have no beef with this. Jeter is a bad shortstop, period. He has no range whatsoever. How he won three Gold Gloves is a complete mystery. Well, actually, no it isn't. It's because he's in New York.
But now Jeter and the Yankees are in damage control. And that's where I have a beef. A huge beef. So let's see what Jeter and the Yanks had to say about the study.
"Maybe it was a computer glitch. Every [shortstop] doesn't stay in the same spot, everyone doesn't have the same pitching. Everyone doesn't have the same hitters running, it's impossible to do that."
And here's what the Yankees brass said."Something like that is a disgrace,"senior advisor Gene Michael said. "It made me ill when I read that article. First of all, what pitching staff was out there? Each team has a different staff. Derek doesn't really have a sinkerball pitching staff whereas other shortstops, you sit behind certain pitchers, you're going to get a lot of ground balls.
So basically what they're saying is, Jeter's lack of range is the result of his pitching staff, not Jeter himself. Except that isn't true at all. And here's the evidence to prove that.
Back in 2002, Jeter and the New York media were trying to push to get him his first gold glove, but ESPN's Rob Neyer, who's a great writer by the way, was having none of it. To prove Jeter wasn't any better than he'd ever been in the past, Neyer did a study of Derek Jeter's range in comparison to his teammate Enrique Wilson.
Here's what he turned up.
In 2001, Jeter made 3.8 plays per nine innings.
Through August of 2002, when Neyer wrote the article, Jeter had made 3.7 plays per nine innings.
Here's what Enrique Wilson did during the same stretch.
In 2001, Enrique Wilson made 4.3 plays per nine innings.
Through August of 2002, Enrique Wilson had made 4.3 plays per nine innings.
Here's the simple conclusion. Enrique was playing with the same pitchers and more or less against the same opponents as Jeter. He consistently, over almost two seasons, was getting to half-a-ball more than Jeter was per game. That's at least a potential 81 more outs for Wilson than Jeter if we don't count any double play balls and theoretically say they both played 162 games.
There's nothing more to say except Jeter's range is terrible, and it always has been, regardless of how much crap the Yankees and Jeter spew out to refute that.
You're a bad shortstop Jeter. You're just lucky you can hit.
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