The Great Derek Jeter Conspiracy
or Part III of ‘Things Aren’t Always as They Appear”.
How is it that Derek Jeter can win three consecutive Gold Glove awards (2004-2006) for being the best defensive shortstop in the American League, but virtually every saber fielding metric rates him among the worst?
The image of a fielder standing over a muffed grounder as the batter crosses first is easily burned into our memory. It’s the avoidance of not only the errors but also infield hits that have impressed us as to who the Golden Glovers should be. Over past six seasons (2003-2008), the most recent period for which RetroSheet has complete batted ball information, Jeter is third at 91.7% among major league shortstops in “sure handedness”, the percentage on infield grounders where an out is recorded. The top spot is held by Omar Vizquel at 92.2%, and Vizquel has won two Gold Gloves during that period, and nine more earlier in his career. Second is Alex Rodriguez at 91.9%, with two Gold Gloves, and fourth is Cesar Izturis at 91.2%, with one award. Eight of the last twelve Gold Gloves at shortstop have gone to the four players with the highest rate of converting ground balls.
However, making outs on the balls you get to is not nearly the total measure of an infielder’s range. While it is easy to remember the booted grounder, it seems that we don’t mentally catalogue how many extra grounders make their way to the outfield for a hit. This is where Jeter falls down.
I counted the number ground ball hits to each outfield position, along with the fielder at each of the four infield spots and the handedness of the batter. I assigned which infielder was responsible for each hit based on the ratio of infield grounders to each position, based on bat hand. It’s an estimate, and it can be improved by adding vector data that is available from GameDay, but even the preliminary results match very well to who is expected to be in the top, middle and bottom.
The player with the highest rate of grounders kept in the infield is Adam Everett at 83.5%, while the worst is Ramon Vazquez at 76.5%. Jeter is next to last at 77.3%. No other shortstop today has such a wide divergence of the highly visible “hands” and the nearly invisible “range” as Jeter.
Let’s say we are designing a table top baseball game (that’s what we played before PCs were invented), and then let’s rate the shortstops on their range. 76.5% of groundballs to short are always outs, 16.5% are always hits. That leaves 7.0% to be contested. For those, we have to roll a 20-sided die. Vazquez is a 0, Everett is a 20, Jeter is a 2. If we roll a 1 or a 2, Jeter gets to the ball – anything from 3 to 20, it goes to the outfield. The difference from best to worst, over a full season, is about 40 hits.
There’s another problem. 6 of the top 11 in “hands” are also in the bottom 16 in “range”. If a player doesn’t get to that many balls, the ones he does get to are likely closer and thus easier to field. This is a bias in the “hands” rating, as those players with less range will have a higher expected value on the balls they do get to. Therefore, players with a high “hands” rating combined with low “range” (Jeter, A-Rod, Keppinger, Betancourt) likely don’t really rate as high, because their expected rate is likely closer to their observed. I will account for this when I process the GameDay vector data.
What really counts is when the ball is hit, does the fielder make an out? That’s the definition of Defense Efficiency Rating (DER) on a team level. Whether it’s by range, throwing arm or good hands, it’s the out that counts. With 1000 or more ground balls, the bottom five at shortstop are Angel Berroa 71.1%, Michael Young 71.0%, Jeter 70.9%, Felipe Lopez 70.2% and Carlos Guillen 69.8%. At the top are Adam Everett 75.7%, Omar Vizquel 74.9%, Troy Tulowitzki 74.3%, Julio Lugo 74.1% and Khalil Greene 74.1%.
Don’t let your eyes fool you.
UZR loves A-Rod at SS for the years we have information. Unless you’re talking about his poor range at third.
A-Rod at SS, great hands, below average range. At 3b, good hands, Miguel Cabrera/Ty Wigginton nearly rock bottom range. Could be an aging effect.
8 runs for a SS is bad range?
That is only for GB, does not include DPs, and has the “hands” boas for some players that needs worked out by use of vector data to estimate difficulrty of eacg GB.
This is a beta, used now only for hit, not run prevention. I only posted them so that Peter would know they existed.
8 runs is still almost a full loss – so not so good.
Could be you’re making these numbers up.
No way
Here’s the full run of infield data at Google Docs. Right now I’m using the RetroSheet play by play to see how much each fielder changes the rate of hits on balls in play. That will lead to defense and park normalized pitching.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pLg_vfW0QCD-PHa5GZCtoWw&hl=en
I hope that wasn’t a serious comment.
I see by the comment just below me that this must not be a serious comment.
Could be that neither number tells the whole story, but you act as if it’s an either/or proposition.
Could be that you have a girl’s name and therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Could be “Denial” isnt just a river in Africa…
Kelly, I’m trying to point out that the “hands” measure is very easy to discern non-statistically, it’s what drives Gold Glove voting, and using Jeter as an example, it’s where he does do very well. Non-saber folks don’t seem to be aware of how many ground ball hits are allowed (and unfortunately, they still have to be estimated). I’m not saying either/or, but a combination – everything allowed is important.
There is a table top game that uses dice-Strato Matic and for reasons beyond my comprehension, they keep giving Jeter very good SS range ratings. Can anyone explain that???
I dont know if its true, but someone told me Strat gives the highest defensive rating to the gold glove winners.
If you are going to pay someone 20MM a year they must be good in all facets of the game, that just hast o be true.
Obviously, Jeter’s value flows from the runs he produces rather than the runs he prevents, and in a down offensive year like last season (perhaps largely attributable to getting HBP by Cabrera in May), his overall value is significantly negative.
The decision to shift Jeter to the OF has to be made after this season because what they do with him will probably impact their decision on whether or not to offer Damon an extension (for no more than two years) if he remains healthy and effective in 2009.
Jeter’s contract has two more years to run. While it’s true that Jeter may well not be worth $20+ million a year, the Yankees can afford to pay him more than he is worth given their revenues, but any extension has to be contingent on Jeter’s willingness to vacate the SS position.
The foregoing, however, is dependent on Jeter returning to being a 120+ OPS+ hitter rather than the 102 OPS+ hitter he was last season.
If Jeter has good hands but no speed/range, why would shifting him to the OF make him better? There is no way he’s fast enough for CF and does his bat really play well in RF/LF? Well enough to be worth $20M per year when Dunn can’t get $13M?
i’m no expert, but i’m betting it has something to do with the “skills” necessary for OF range are different from those necessary for IF range. also, the OF is easier to play than the IF in general (well, not 1B maybe). also, if Jeter can turn into a very good defensive LF, that could be very valuable — you can’t dismiss a great defensive LF just because he plays LF. check out this Eric Seidman article comparing Carl Crawford and Manny Ramirez from about a month ago:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/why-we-undervalue-defense
Checking Tom Tango’s “Fans Scouting Report” for 2005-2008 http://tangotiger.net/scouting/scoutResults2008_NYA.html, their evaluation of his skills shows that Jeter has always rated below average on instincts and first step, while being above average in hands, arm strength and throwing accuracy. Jeter lacks range because he doesn’t react quickly enough at the crack of the bat. This is in agreement with what I have found in the pbp.
Somewhere I have a file which converts these position neutral skills into how well a player would be expected to field at each position, but I can’t find it yet.
I do agree with your doubts on Jeter’s ability to be a productive outfielder.
It has always seemed to me that Jeter has decent speed but not particularly good lateral quickness. Even if I’m right, I’m not sure that his speed is still CF worthy, but it may well be more than sufficient to play a corner OF position, If so, as long as he can put up an OPS that is equivalent to his .845 career average, he would be at least league average offensively.
In all likelihood, Jeter is going to finish his career with the Yankees and the Yankees will keep him on the roster at a very high salary at least a year past the point that he might be awful.
Accepting that as an unavoidable fact, and focusing on the possible rather than the optimal, moving Jeter to the OF may present the best possible available option.
Meanwhile, it’s far from certain that he won’t play SS until he is 40.
no wonder why Texas is moving Young to 3rd. The Yankees should put Jeter in centerfield and trade for a SS.
I would be curious to see how Jeter’s defense directly affected Andy Pettitte.
Unrelated to Jeter, but CHONE projects a .319 wOBA for Tim Raines in 2009. Yes, THAT Tim Raines. Maybe FanGraphs can make a post about what kind of contract he can expect this offseason?
Yeah, its not that Tim Raines. Has to be a transcription error. Clearly that’s meant for Tim Raines, Jr. with the 18 SBs and only 25 BBs in 429 ABs. The elder Raines could still beat that walk number. He walked 22 times in 114 PAs in his last season.
Well when I go to Tim Raines’s player page (yeah, THAT Tim Raines) it lists a CHONE projection. That’s all. Obviously I don’t think it’s an actual projection for the elder Raines – trying to make a joke, guess it failed.
Does this same problem come up for Tony Gwynn, Jr. and Tony Pena, Jr.?
It’s Tim Raines jr. I have a projection for Gary Matthews as well, but it’s the Angel albatross, not ol Sarge from the Phillies, Cubs, and others.
Why bother putting the Jr when the dad is long retired? Griffey is another one. If it were 1990 I’d make the effort to distinguish them.
Thank you. This is a really pet peeve of mine. The last name is Griffey, not Griffey Jr. I cannot stand it when they insist on putting the Jr. in there. As you said there simply is not any reason for it at this point.
It’s because he became a superstar as Ken Griffey Jr. He’ll always be Junior, I think its kind of comforting.
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
One other thing: Jeter is very good at a lot of different thing at shortstop besides having surehandedness- he’s good at charging in, he’s good at moving backwards, he’s good at getting double plays started quickly, he has a good arm, he’s good at getting pop-ups, he has great instincts at knowing what to do with the ball once he fields it.
He’s good at virtually every part of the shortstop job except what is far and away the most important part – range to his left and right on ground balls.
Aother advantage (if not a necessity) of replacing Jeter with a top tier defensive SS is that any loss of range that A-Rod experiences as he ages would be mitigated if he played next to a SS who can compensate for that.
Quote: Jeter lacks range because he doesn’t react quickly enough at the crack of the bat.
I think it was Biggio who said that Adam Everett’s advantage comes from his first step. He said that, at the crack of the bat, Everett seemed to know where the ball is going before anyone else on the field.
Based on what you’ve said about Jeter, it strikes me that he might be well suited for third base where good hands are a bigger part of the job. But, with A-Rod at 3d, I suppose that’s not possible. If the Yankees were to trade Robinson Cano, Jeter might be acceptable at 2d, particularly with Texeira available to cover ground to the left of the 2d baseman.
“This is a bias in the “hands” rating, as those players with less range will have a higher expected value on the balls they do get to…”
I am not sure what you mean by this, but I compared (and correlated) UZR “hands” (essentially fielding percentage) and “range” and found that player with better “range” numbers also have better “hands” numbers. The reason is probably that the better athletes get to more balls and are more sure handed. Or, the ones who better range are treated better by the scorers. Or both.
So, Brian, if you are suggesting that range and hands are negatively correlated (I can’t tell from the sentence I quoted above), you are wrong.
As far as Jeter turning the DP well, from 04 to 08, if we compare how many times he turns the DP on both the front end (as the thrower) and the back end (as the pivot man) compared to an average SS, given the direction and speed of every ground ball, and the handedness of the batter, he is +1 runs total.
This is an issue I want to explore further when I have vector data available. I know that you use vectors for UZR, but It might depend on our definitions of hands and range.
My “range” was the pct of grounders that stayed in the infield, whether or not they were outs. I knew the total number of ground ball hits to lf, cf and rf, and then had to make assumptions as to which infielder to assign responsibility.
My “hands” is the pct of balls kept in the infield that are converted into outs.
Those range stats are somewhat bunk since they don’t account for initial starting position. I think I read a few years back someone comparing Everett to Jeter and noted that Jeter was consistently playing shallower and to the left of Everett, and most other shortstops. This year he was playing more up the middle hence his range UZR, RZR etc being in the middle of the pack instead of the bottom. He’s a quick player, he doesn’t have problem with lateral movement, more bad positioning.
Unless someone is going to try to convince me that Jeter’s UZR rating is 20 runs better than 2007 because he tried harder.
The thing I’ve always noticed about Jeter is that be looks graceful, and I think that subconsciously colors people’s opinions of him. He looks so smooth making those spinning throws to first that you just assume he must be vacuuming up balls out there, despite seeing a “pasta diving Jeter” play immediately before and after.
As for range stats being “bunk” — well, what matters is outs made. If a smart fielder can position himself better from batter to batter and thereby use his head to make up for his feet, so be it. Properly formulated range stats should pick that up implicitly.
“As for range stats being “bunk” — well, what matters is outs made. If a smart fielder can position himself better from batter to batter and thereby use his head to make up for his feet, so be it. Properly formulated range stats should pick that up implicitly.”
Hopefully, this will become less of a subjective issue if/whenever FIELDf/x comes along. Hopefully.
Interesting stuff….I’m pretty new to defensive range metrics, and would have to say I’m still a bit skeptical of how accurate they really are. But I’m open to being convinced as I learn more. They would seem to be able to paint with a broad brush though. Does anybody know whether there is a factor in the UZR and other metrics that take into account the infield that these guys are playing on? I may be wrong, but can’t there be a pretty good variance on the cut of the infield grass depending on where you are playing? Any stats that show whether these guys home/road splits have any statistically significant variance? I would think the folks who coined these metrics would have thought of this and have something in the metrics to account for that….Brian? Others?
Good questions….my system is definitely version 1.0, and so far only looks at hits allowed by the defense, so that I can use that later in evaluating pitching.
The biggest obstacle in doing defensive stats is not always knowing who the ball was hit to. The play by play tells us whch fielder retrieved the ball, but that is not always the player who had the best opportunity to field the ball. For example, if the pbp says “ground out to shortstop” or “infield single to shortstop” or “reached on error by shortstop”, obviously we know the ball was hit to the shortstop….but if the pbp says “ground single to left”, was it closer to 3b or ss? Right now I am using RetroSheet pbp. mlb.com’s GameDay files also list the xy location where the ball was retrieved. From that, we can calculate the angle from home plate, and get a much better picture of where the ball was hit. Still, we have to make calculations and assumptions to assign responsibility for these ground abll hits to each of the infielders. MGL’s UZR does use the vector data, he has been doing this for several years, and UZR is one of the most respected fielding systems.
As for my numbers, I do take the ballparks into consideration in the first step. From the master play by play database, I extract what I need for fielding, which includes FLD_CD (which field the ball was hit to) FLD_ID (which fielder retrieved the ball) BATTEDBALL_CD (GB, FB, LD or PU), the result of the play, and YEAR, HOME_TEAM_ID, AWAY_TEAM_ID, PARK_ID and Surface (artifical or natural). First I add up all the results, by position, for all years and all ballparks. Then I group by ballparks, them finally group by individual players. This way I can compare what each player did to what every other player did in, by ballpark, by battedball type, then add up the expected and the observed totals. So, to evaluate Jeter, I took his totals, each year, in each ballpark and compared it to what every other player did at that fielding position in that ballpark, and added up all the ballparks for that year, then for career added up all the years.
Quote: “They would seem to be able to paint with a broad brush though. Does anybody know whether there is a factor in the UZR and other metrics that take into account the infield that these guys are playing on? I may be wrong, but can’t there be a pretty good variance on the cut of the infield grass depending on where you are playing? Any stats that show whether these guys home/road splits have any statistically significant variance? I would think the folks who coined these metrics would have thought of this and have something in the metrics to account for that….Brian? Others?”
PMR, the defensive measurement system developed at baseballmusings.com should control for all ballpark factors. That’s because players’ defensive performance is measured on the basis of home ballparks, i.e., measured against the performance of opposing defenders playing the same position at the same ballpark
I recall that UZR does contain park adjustments. Whether the adjustment applies only to flyball, I don’t know. Maybe MGL can answer the question.
It’s shocking how easily people accept an argument because it’s based on a formula, no matter how specious it is.
Which formula and why is it specious?
I’d be glad to debate it with you, just detail the argument for your point of view.
I’m curious as to why (by UZR, anyway) Jeter has recently been alternating being nearly average and downright awful in the field.
My eyes tell me that he was positioned differently last season (more up the middle) and seemed to be getting to more balls because of it. That has been, in the past, the key “past a diving Jeter” area. There was also talk coming into the season of him working on lateral quickness (an obvious weakness of his). I wonder if these things are real and can therefore continue… or illusions.
First step is obviously a problem with him. However, if he can manage to be vaguely mediocre in the field (as opposed to downright terrible), he’s a big asset b/c of his bat (even in decline).
As for why others think he’s great… many reasons. First, he’s a star on a big stage… therefore he must be good! Second, he looks pretty good out there (at least to the untrained eye). Third, he’s made some big plays in big games (the flip vs the As, the dive into the stands vs the Sox, etc). Fourth, if you’re a sportswriter who finds advanced statistical analysis threatening, Jeter offers you a perfect opportunity to reject it.
Rob- can’t speak for other years but in 2007 he had a pretty awful knee injury for the last few weeks of the year. Last year might have been real improvement or a fluke, won’t know for sure.
Yeah, I knew he had a knee issue that year. He often plays through injuries, and I’m not sure if it’s the best idea. But even if you take out ’07, his defense seems to be all over the place.
The stats change because while defensive stats are food for thought, they’re not necessarily representative of a player’s abilities. (Miguel Tejada, for example, vacillates between being Ozzie Smith and Jose Offerman from season to season.) Even with today’s fancy metrics, fielding stats are still largely based on someone’s opinion on what should have happened on a particular play.
Anyone who actually watches Jeter play can probably see that, yeah, there are shortstops who are better at going up the middle on balls than Jeter. But anyone who isn’t an idiot can tell that this is a really great player who’s a tremendous asset to his team. There are plenty of worse players for the statheads to be picking-on than Derek Jeter. Just because some people overrate Jeter’s abilities is no reason for others to dedicate twenty hours a day, like this site does, to bashing a Hall of Fame talent.
Could this be Jeter’s strategy? To make himself look good by only going for groundballs that he has a very good chance of reeling in? Or is it just that he’s just not that good range-wise?
It’s also ironic that Lugo is actually one of the best defensive shortstops out there, because he has been crucified by casual Red Sox fans all over for his supposedly bad defense.
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
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!
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.
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…
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.
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.
You guys still believe this stuff after this season and after the Punto play against the Twins?
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.