Comments on: The Great Derek Jeter Conspiracy

By: Brian Cartwright

Brian Cartwright — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:56:56 +0000

Yep. Jeter has very sure hands a a very strong arm, but below average range. Doesn’t mean he can’t make a great play, just that he makes fewer overall plays.

By: so now what

so now what — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:29:55 +0000

You guys still believe this stuff after this season and after the Punto play against the Twins?

By: Alireza

Alireza — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:01:56 +0000

The reason A-Rod was a better fielder at SS wasn’t his range, but his intelligent positioning. 3B relies far less on changes in positioning and reading balls off the bat and much more on raw agility and reaction time, which were never A-Rod’s strong suits. Also, his arm has never seemed to be particularly stellar.

“If Jeter has good hands but no speed/range, why would shifting him to the OF make him better?”

Jeter still has some raw speed. His problem is that he doesn’t have a ton of lateral agility and has never seemed to be much at positioning himself. His main fielding skills: the ability to run and throw, are well suited to the position and could actually help the Yankees at this point.

“Furthermore, I feel Jeter has always been great around the bag in DP’s and SB attempts, as well as being, again in my opinion, an excellent cut-off man.”

This is naturally where Jeter shines because he has soft hands, a powerful arm and is generally a strong guy who can take a hit on a DP.

By: Brian Cartwright

Brian Cartwright — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:11:34 +0000

The main part of the article was to show that Jeter is excellent at converting balls he gets to into outs, and that correlates very well with the GG vote – but he’s very poor at getting to balls.

I’m working on a separate calculation for DPs started and pivoted, not yet completed. I have not considered how to midel cutoffs and receiving SBA throws.

By: fothead

fothead — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:22:42 +0000

Furthermore, I feel Jeter has always been great around the bag in DP’s and SB attempts, as well as being, again in my opinion, an excellent cut-off man. I also wonder how these things work into the equation. Even though the primary role of a SS is to field groundballs, I think it’s a little unfair to only look at that. Again, I think he’s poor, especially to his left (where he is utterly dreadful in my opinion) but I think it’s become too trendy to rip him as some complete waste of space there either. Maybe I’m wrong, and if so, please tell me why…

By: fothead

fothead — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:18:00 +0000

First let me say that I agree that Jeter is a poor defender and has been for years. But as an avid Yankee fan, and one who is still not fully sold on the accuracy defensive metrics, I go more by the eye test with Jeter.

With that said, how does Jeter’s ability to track pop ups into LF and into foul territory work into the overall equation? I mean, at least according to the eye test in my opinion, this is Jeter’s strongest defensive ability. I have seen few shortstops who can turn the flares into outs that would have otherwise fallen for hits or foul balls like Jeter.

Also with that said, I feel Jeter still can be moved to CF. I think he has better arm strength then eitehr of the primary two CF candidates, and with his ability to track flyballs, I feel would transition well to the position. I’ve been saying that for years. I mean Robin Yount once did it, and was never really a speedster. Bernie Williams patrolled CF for the Yanks while they won 4 WS, and he was never all that fast. I think technique and not foot speed is more key to CF.

Just some thoughts on the subject as that talk has started to pick up steam in the NY area.

By: Brian Cartwright

Brian Cartwright — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:53:17 +0000

If Dad and Son had the same first and last name, and both played in MLB, especially if there’s not many years between them, it helps the public. The Griffeys played together, his nickname is Junior.

Also, for us stat guys, our files contain many years, and even with ID codes, we need to tweak the names to avoid duplicates. Database wise, the best way is to have three fields, last name, first name, and suffix. I don’t like to see Griffey Jr, Ken – because Jr is part of his name, but it’s not part of the last name. It should be Ken Griffey Jr, or Griffey, Ken Jr

By: Dude

Dude — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 23:19:15 +0000

It’s because he became a superstar as Ken Griffey Jr. He’ll always be Junior, I think its kind of comforting.

By: KitchenSink

KitchenSink — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:16:16 +0000

By the way, everyone, there is another tabletop baseball game that some people, ahem, still play. It’s called Dynasty League Baseball, and it’s the offpsring of a now defunct game called PTP. And Jeter has been a “D” range (2nd-worst possible rating) at ss for at least the past two seasons – much to my chagrin, because he is the captain my the once-league champion New York Felines!

By: Brian Cartwright

Brian Cartwright — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:48:19 +0000

Jeter isn’t that good range wise, but he has good hand and a strong arm. He makes the outs on balls he gets to, but he is just bad at getting to them. But surehandedness correlates very strongly with Gold Gloves, while range doesn’t.

Lugo gets bad marks on Tango’s Fans Report, getting good marks on speed and first step, but terribel ones on hands, relese and accuracy.
http://tangotiger.net/scouting/scoutResults2008_BOS.html

My data shows Lugo being 8-10 runs above avg from 2003-2005, but pretty average the past 3 years. He does let more runners reach on errors than average, but cuts down both infield and outfield hits. Overall percent of batters retired, over six years, he ranks near the top, but he does seem to be in decline.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pLg_vfW0QCD-PHa5GZCtoWw&hl=en