Anyone catch that? They just made their comments about a minute before I'm making this post.
McCarver said that those who call Jeter the worst shortstop in baseball are now all "silent" after his performance this year. Buck said there isn't a scout in baseball who would be afraid for batters to hit the ball toward Jeter.
To his credit, he's been about +19 runs above average since 2002 at "Range Error", which probably means that when he gets to the ball he's pretty good.
It's just that he doesn't get to much and is -45 runs below average since 2002 in pure Range.
So, they're not exactly wrong, in that the Yankees shouldn't be afraid if the ball is hit directly towards Jeter. Just don't make him try to get to the ball not hit directly at him.
McCarver's comment was that Jeter had silenced his critics _this year_. By that, he meant that Jeter's fielding numbers have changed this year, due to adjustments Jeter and the Yankees have been working on, in part in response to criticisms from the sabermetrically-oriented, and in part to combat Jeter's slight aging.
At any rate, McCarver's point was (and I've been concurring on this site for quite some time) that Jeter always had the tools to be a good fielder and this year he proved it.
David, I think that analysis matches yours - Jeter's been good when the ball is hit near him - but this year he was good with range as well. If you want, you can consider this a victory of sorts for statheads everywhere, because it's apparent that Jeter did respond to a stat-based criticism and became a better player for it. But this year was decidedly not a victory for the "Jeter sucks and he should hang up his cleats now" point of view, and may point to a wider example of the misuse of baseball statistics.
Perhaps if this trend continues (Jeter has a few good years left in him), we may see people finally acknowledge the difference between tools and skills. To say someone has not put up the numbers for one kind of stat (a skill measure) is not the same as saying he has no ability to do so (a tools measure). Perhaps Jeter was making a poor decision where to play on the field before and he wised up this year and saw his numbers improve accordingly. He always could have, but this year he did.
I'm not saying we have enough data to conclude that decisively yet...it was only the one year of data. But it would be very interesting if this did continue. And I, along with Tim McCarver, would expect to hear a lot of apologies from a lot of overbearing statheads if it did.
I'm not quite getting your point. If someone year after year puts up crummy numbers in whatever stat, then the reasonable conclusion to make is that he's not very good at whatever that stat represents (power, plate discipline, range).
Jeter has year after year put up below average Range numbers. The reasonable conclusion to make is that he had trouble getting to a lot of balls.
I don't think anyone was ever saying Jeter sucks or should quit. The guy has averaged 5 WAR per season since 2002 and has more or less been the most valuable SS over that same period.
What should statheads apologize to you or McCarver about? That his numbers showed he had crummy range?
For 14 years his numbers were considerably below average; this year they were above average; we'll see what they are next year. If he really changed, great for him and all the people who believed after 14 years he would and could make himself an above average defensive shortstop.
There was a whole big messy post about Jeter I started off a few months ago, and most of the posts in there which are not my own posts say essentially what you've said above. Check out the original post's thread for the long, dreary exchange. :)
Numerous of the posts I made on that thread said that the stats upon which people rely to make the case that Jeter is a below-average shortstop only consider one dimension of Jeter's fielding. You said it yourself in your first post in this thread - Jeter is at the very least a competent shortstop if the ball is hit near him, it's just his range which was at issue.
(In fact, your post in this thread claims he is above average under those circumstances - 19 runs above average - which is a claim even I wasn't comfortable making under the withering criticism of my adversaries in the previous thread. But I digress...)
Where are we disagreeing here? I'll try to make it clearer. When I pointed out in the earlier thread that Jeter's numbers were up this year, and that this was likely the result of the Yankees working with Jeter on his range (something well documented in the press), my adversaries instead suggested this could only be a statistical blip, because a "bad fielder" is unlikely to change his spots. That is the whole of the disagreement in a nutshell. My view is that Jeter has always had the fielding tools, and the opposing view is that he does not have those tools (and therefore can't "improve just because he wants to".)
People like Tim McCarver, because they've actually played baseball, understand this kind of difference. People like Joe Buck, because they report on what they actually see on the field, understand this kind of difference. People who don't reflect on the potential shortcomings of numbers as models of reality, they don't understand this kind of difference.
What's disconcerting about your comment is that it seems that if Jeter actually does have a sustained improvement in range, the sabermetric community will attribute this to Jeter having purchased a new pair of legs or stretchier arms or something. My point is that it's the same Jeter we had before, he's just learned how to play the game differently.
To me, saying Jeter is a bad fielder is like saying Dave Kingman was a bad hitter. Yes, we all know his batting average was low, but we also know that, when Kingman found the ball, it went to the stratosphere. If Kingman had worked on stopping his free swinging a bit more, he might well have been regarded as one of the best hitters in baseball history. The tools were there. It's shortsighted to say "yes, but look at his average" and then stop arguing as if that accomplished your entire point. It's the same here.
What's disconcerting about your comment is that it seems that if Jeter actually does have a sustained improvement in range, the sabermetric community will attribute this to Jeter having purchased a new pair of legs or stretchier arms or something. My point is that it's the same Jeter we had before, he's just learned how to play the game differently.
I don't see why you think fans of stats oriented analysis are going to hold a grudge about Jeter being a bad fielder and to continue to insist that his fielding is a "fluke" or "magical" or something equally absurd like arm or leg transplants.
I think if the data show that he's really improved, anyone who takes an objective look at things will give him full credit for doing something different, not to mention investigate what he did different.
Players improve all the time, pitchers learn to pitch, batters learn to hit, this is nothing new and just because it's Jeter we're talking about doesn't mean the analysis will be treated differently.
I don't really understand what you're trying to say about Kingman. Potential and realizing that potential are not the same thing. A player can have all the potential or talent in the world, but if he sucks on the field and you look back at his career you can reminisce all you want about how talented he was, but at some point you have to face the facts.
The fact is that for 14 years, Jeter was a below average shortstop. He didn't get to balls an average shortstop should have. Let's for the sake of argument say that Jeter really has improved his fielding. It doesn't erase the 14 years he sucked and when you look back at his entire career you can't throw those years out, which seems to be what you're suggesting we do because we don't have a stat that measures unrealized talent.
Check out the previous Jeter thread. I say people can't wrap their brains around the "tools" concept because numerous posters on that thread made this clear. I say people can't seem to wrap their brains around the concept of a fielding game with more than one dimension to it because posters on that thread also made that clear.
And you continue this here - there is not only one "fact", that for 14 years, Jeter was a below average shortstop. There are _several_ facts to consider. With respect to range Jeter was below average. But with respect to being surehanded close in to where he plays and making few errors, he's always been pretty good. And when you present one uniform stat that says "Yes, but overall, he's below average" and run down people who cite the smaller stats under the surface of things, it comes off like willfully ignoring factors which may prove important because you don't like the player.
The Kingman example is similar. I'm not saying he only had "unrealized potential". The man hit 442 homeruns. You don't do that falling off the back of the pickle truck. He showed that, in at least one dimension of hitting, he was actually a pretty good hitter. It's disingenuous to say you really can't see this, and I have too high an estimation of your intelligence to presume that you really can't. His .236 batting average notwithstanding, there was a dimension to his game that was actually good.
But somehow Jeter can have that +19 for Range Error since 2002 and still properly be described by that blanket overall "below average fielder" designation. Not dropping the ball when it's hit to you apparently no longer matters? Not throwing the ball into the seats apparently no longer matters? Jeter deserves proper credit for this side to his game, which has always been there, just like Kingman deserves credit for his home runs, which were always there.
I know there seems to be this premium for defining things in only one possible way and then trying to show everyone that the one possible way is your way. Please try and resist this...baseball's a multifaceted game.
Nobody is saying Jeter's error rating doesn't matter. Of course it does. However, if, when you add up all of the factors you are using to measure value, they are well below average, it doesn't really matter whether he is above average at one of those things and extra bad at something else or just equally bad at everything. His defensive value is what it is. Being +19 in error runs when he is -47 in range runs and -5 in double play runs does not make him not below average when you consider all the factors. It makes him below average. The only way you look at those numbers and don't conclude he is a below average fielder based on them is if you don't consider all the factors.
That wasn't the point in the previous thread and it's not the point here. The point is that having a dimension of good play matters in terms of broadening one's ability to play better.
Look back at the other thread's exchange. Nowhere did I claim that Jeter is the shortstop of the century. My most extreme claim was that I thought Jeter was a competent shortstop. This year he was more than competent, but before that, "competent" was as high as I went. But even that was too high for my adversaries in that thread. "Jeter may actually have fielding ability" is the same as "2+2=5" for that crowd.
It doesn't matter if someone's good at one element of fielding and bad at the others? That strikes me a little like saying someone can spell in English but not in French. The fact that someone can spell in English indicates they have spelling ability, and that if they work at it a bit, they could spell equally well in French. Spelling ability is the "tool" in this example, spelling according to the rules of the specific language is the "skill". Someone can have the tools but not yet have mastered the skills.
There is a difference between Derek Jeter trying to be a better shortstop and me trying to be a better shortstop. He has the athletic ability to accomplish this, I don't.
Wait, are you implying that Jeter has been as bad as he has been at defense because he had the ability but just didn't try or didn't work hard enough? If you think he has had the ability to be better than he has been if he just tries to be a better shortstop all along, and just hasn't put his ability to use to actually be a good shortstop, that is a whole new claim about Jeter's character or work ethic.
In either case, how much does it really matter if someone thinks he had the ability all along or not if he failed to use that ability for 14 years? Whether he was a poor defender because he just didn't have the ability or because he had the ability all along and only decided to start trying to improve this year, he has still been a poor defender over his career. Is that more valuable if it was due to lack of effort rather than lack of ability? Also, have you got any evidence to demonstrate that being +19 in Error runs and -52 runs in everything else is actually any better than just -11 in each of the three categories? -33 runs is -33 runs.
Are you also expecting Yadier Molina to start hitting home runs right and left because he is good at another aspect of hitting?
What I had been claiming is that Jeter was playing in the wrong place. This claim seemed to be born out by some scatterplot data I saw of where Jeter made most of his plays in 2008 (near second base) as opposed to where Troy Tulowitzki made most of his plays (much more near the traditional location for shortstops). That suggests that a logical move would just be to start playing more in position.
Apparently the reason he has positioned himself in that location is that he has favored his right hip and ankle over his left hip and ankle in the past, as indicated by this story which ran in the Bergen County Record about his retraining program...
--
“We discussed how we can keep him in the game as long as he wants to play,” said Jason Riley, director of performance of the Athletes Compound at Tampa’s Saddlebrook Resort. “Derek said it may not be eight to 10 years at shortstop, but that he wanted to play that long. “So in his case we were looking at speed and agility. Our main focus was improving his defensive skills and first-step quickness.”
Riley discovered immediately why Jeter had little trouble making plays to his right, to his rear and toward the infield grass, and yet struggled when moving toward second base.
Jeter had limited ankle mobility and far less flexibility in his left hip than he did in his right, a condition not uncommon for a ballplayer hitting and throwing from the right side.
---
Notice how this training regimen proceeded from the assumption that Derek Jeter is a competent fielder who had _one area_ in his fielding game that needed to be improved...not that he had to be entirely retrained, but that he had to be retrained to do something very specific...to play farther from second base and to get a better jump on balls hit toward his left (on his second-base side).
1) Does it matter if there's a latent ability in a player which thus far has not been tapped to become actual production? Yes! Absolutely! If you don't think so, then I assume if Sandy Koufax came to you in 1961 and said "I don't know why I'm not getting people out more", you would say "Me neither, Sandy...hang up the cleats and call it a career." Everyone saw the tools in Sandy, and it took Norm Sherry (and the Dodgers' scout Kenny Myers) to help him bring out the skills.
One could seize upon Koufax's spotty overall statistics up until that point to make the argument for sending him on his merry way, I suppose...but Koufax also struck out 18 people in a game in 1959. Indeed the sole good thing one could say overall about Koufax's pitching up until 1961 was that he was a relatively decent strikeout pitcher. But overall he was "below average", I suppose.
Except he was Sandy Koufax and people could see that a great player was in there, and with a little work would emerge.
2) The Yadier Molina example...I'm not sure that someone who hits for average is necessarily going to have the tools to hit home runs. The argument is stronger that someone who can hit the ball out of the park like Dave Kingman can surely also manage to be patient and occasionally hit the ball through a gap in the infield, which is closer in than out of the park. So the Molina example may be qualitatively different. But perhaps someone who hits a lot of extra base hits that stay in the park can work on something to get those hits out of the park.
In Molina's case, 76.5% of his hits are singles, so if the Cardinals are really considering putting Yadier through physical therapy to make him into a home run king, it will probably take a lot of therapy.
Actually, your claim was not that he was a competent SS. The claim was that he was an "average" SS. Your original claim, which was rather ridiculous, was that he had an unusual ability to get putouts.
I argued that he didn't have any special ability to get putouts. He just played more games than most SS. You argued that was not the case and then I showed it by comparing him to Furcal, Tejada, Young and Vizquel. On average, he actually got a little less than the average SS.
According to UZR, Jeter is playing roughly average SS over the past two years so he maybe his training has paid off and he does actually have a little more range now. It's possible.
He could be considered average over the past two years but well below average over his career.
I conceded over and over again that Jeter was a SS with good hands that could make the routine play. That is what a competent SS does. But you were hungup on that putout thing which was completely wrong. That's what the thread was all about. You have once again forgotten what your argument was.
"According to UZR, Jeter is playing roughly average SS over the past two years so he maybe his training has paid off and he does actually have a little more range now. It's possible."
If you remember you've said that, I'll remember I said those things you mentioned. :)
I never argued that Jeter was anything but a competent SS. It was you that wanted to move him to LF or 1B. I said I wouldn't even do that because it would diminish his value.
He might even have made himself an average SS. But I wouldn't get too excited. He has had a couple of years of average ratings before and then chalked up huge negative numbers.
My guess is that Jeter is still a below average SS and there is some error in this year's numbers.
The big problem with thinking that Jeter has improved his play in the field is that he actually made fewer plays this year than in past years. To me, that's problematical. A player that has improved his range probably should make more plays and not fewer. That's where I think range factor still has some value. His RF was a horrendous 3.9. And as bad as range factor may be, there are no average SS that chalk up a 3.9.
Also, while UZR rated Jeter roughly average, Total Zone rated him a minus 4 runs last year. It will be interesting to see what Total Zone shows for Jeter.
I think the reality is that Jeter has benefitted from some good luck in the measurements and is still pretty much the same defensive player. He's not making any more plays than in the past. He might have improved himself somewhat. But probably not very much and not enough to be considered average. This is probably just one of those wild UZR swings that benefitted Jeter.
But, as he has always been, he is competent and I'll take a competent SS with a 400 OBP and power any day.
Your range factor comment got me thinking about how Jeter stacked up this year for raw number of Outs (PO + A).
In MLB this year he was 14th in Outs...a little less than the median out of a group of 26 shortstops that were really the clear "starters" for their teams. So that would be one for the "below average" thesis...but oddly, for this year rather than his "earlier, crappier period".
Interestingly, though, in 2005, Jeter was 7th in MLB in Outs...definitely above the average in a group of 24 clear "starters". And that was good enough for 3rd in the AL, after Julio Lugo and Miguel Tejada. And he wasn't far behind them. Lugo had 735 Outs. Tejada had 732 Outs. Jeter had 716 Outs. Jeter was clearly getting the job done as much as the leaders. Maybe the Gold Glove should have gone to Lugo or Tejada, but it's clear Jeter had nothing to apologize for that year.
So, that accords with your claim that, in terms of getting Outs for the team, Jeter was actually better earlier on than he was this year. It was just that this year he scored high on UZR, which is embarrassing for those who believe in UZR. :) Of course you're right that this could just be another one of UZR's volatile swings. That's why I didn't draw any complete conclusions from Jeter's performance this year.
Where I continue to disagree with you is that it's Range Factor that matters (I don't care if a shortstop has a Range Factor of 10 if that person also doesn't play enough to turn that relationship into a large number of Outs for the team.)
About Jeter having less plays this year, the GB% for Yankees pitchers this year was 42.3%, compared to 45.7% last year. That's the biggest problem with Range Factor. With the fewer plays, there's just that much more room for variability.
Obviously, range factor has it problems. But I find it a little difficult to imagine that Jeter actually improved his range significantly while making fewer plays. The number of plays Jeter makes per year has been pretty remarkably consistent over his career and this was a year in which he made the fewest plays in his career.
You can say if the ball distribution had been different he would have made just as many plays or maybe even a few more. But I don't think you can say that he made significantly more plays and is now an average SS and some might want to believe by looking at his UZR.
It looks like Jeter is the same Derek Jeter. Anyone that wants to believe otherwise is probably kidding themselves.
And by the way Zachary, in terms of raw numbers, Jeter rated last in MLB in PO+A, not 14th. You cannot give him more credit for playing more games unless other teams just leave the SS position vacant on the days they don't play the starter. I've pointed this out to you before but it is a concept that is lost on you for some reason.
The reason Jeter probably made the fewest plays in MLB is probably because he has the least amount of range in the league.
It's not lost on me...you seem to think there's something magic about the figure of 150 games played, and I don't. This is just a way of getting the raw figure watered down to a ratio stat like range factor, instead of something that measures the actual contribution to the club. People don't make percentages of outs, they make outs.
Jeter made more outs than everyone except 13 other shortstops. It's not my fault the other shortstops didn't play more, it's theirs for not impressing their managers they should be out there every day.
We don't rate home run kings on their home runs per at bat assuming a 150 game season, why should we rate fielders that way?
Also, it did say in that same Bergen County Record article I cited earlier that the Yankees themselves had been floating the idea of moving Jeter to the outfield, and this was part of the reason Jeter was doing his retraining...because he wanted to continue at shortstop. So I'm not the only one who thought maybe moving Jeter to another position might have been a bright idea.
When do we get to types of pitchers each team has? I mean, say the Yankees went with four sinker ballers in the starting rotation and Jeter STILL made the least plays. Is that considered in either argument? (I'm new to the forum here - please disregard if stupid question)
Dorsal, that's not a stupid question at all. That's one reason we need to consider opportunities in the equation and why you would never want to use something like total outs to judge a fielder if you have something like UZR that does consider opportunities. For example, Lugo and Jeter in 2005. In roughly the same number of innings, Lugo made 19 more outs than Jeter. Lugo's pitchers, however, allowed 294 fewer ground balls when he was on the field at short than Jeter's pitchers allowed when he played. So despite having nearly 300 more ground balls traversing his infield, Jeter still fielded fewer outs than Lugo. That's important if you actually want to know who was the more valuable fielder. The more you know about the number of opportunities and how many plays a typical fielder generally makes given the same number and distribution of opportunities, the better you can answer the question of how good or valuable a fielder was. Which is why we use stats like UZR that consider all the relevant available information instead of just assuming that none of it matters.
That was actually an excellent question, Dorsal. And as Kincaid pointed out, range factor really isn't all that good at determining how good a fielder is. But UZR will not tell you how good a fielder is in any given year either.
If you use both of them, you might learn something about a player than just looking at UZR (or you might not). That's why I used it in the case of Jeter. His UZR looks good but his range factor is just as bad as ever. So that makes me skeptical of Jeter's improvement.
I'm glad Zachary started this crazy thing again, because I think it helped me understand UZR and RF a little better. I could never understand why Jeter had one of his worst UZR years during a year when he had his best RF. And now he has one of his best UZRs in a year when he had his one of his worst RF.
Generally, a good RF will be a good indication of range as will a good UZR. But it is not always the case. UZR doesn't measure range. It measures that fielder's impact on the team which usually is indicative of range but not always. RF just measures plays made and players with more range tend to make more plays.
If you have a poor fielder, the more balls hit in their direction, the more exposed they are going to be. In 2005, Jeter seems to have had a lot of balls hit to him which improved his RF but it also might have resulted in more balls going through his zone which he couldn't get to, so his UZR would have terrible. The opposite likely occurs with a guy with great range, because they would have stolen away more hits which is why a good RF is usually a reflection of good range.
In 2009, as LeeTro notes, Jeter had fewer balls hit his way and that automatically helped his UZR. Because if the ball doesn't get hit in his general direction, he can't cost a run. He also only committed 8 errors which helped his UZR a bit compared to other years since a missed play will cost a run 75% of the time according to the saberists.
So Jeter's good UZR is probably not so much an indication of improved range as much as it is a reflection of him having an easier year in the field as a result of fewer tough plays being hit toward him. It was literally the way the ball bounced for him and the Yankees this year. It didn't bounce his way as much and when it did, it was usually hit where he could get to it. In the end, his lack of errors and lack of tough plays resulted in him being a positive defensively for the Yankees even though he was basically the same player. If the balls had bounced differently, he probably would have had a bad UZR.
I'll be the first to admit that Kincaid knows lots more about this than I do. What do you think of that assessment Kincaid just for my own information?
Oh brother, here we go with the smarmy faux deference and the "you guys know so much more than poor little me" to the guys who run the site and the usual "your arguments are absurd" to me. Nice. Then moving on to talk to someone else like I'm something you scraped off the bottom of your shoes. Way to win friends and influence people. Not.
Jamesian, I'm waiting for you to debunk the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit on the "he wasn't all that great, the pitchers just threw him too many fastballs" argument. That's a decent analogy to what you're saying about Jeter here.
It's a proper analogy for two reasons.
The first reason is that you're claiming the conditions of the statistical achievement (pitch type thrown to Ruth / number of ground balls hit to Jeter) matter more than the achievement itself (the HR for Ruth / the Out for Jeter). I disagree...we don't parse this stuff for the home run hitter, and we shouldn't for the fielder either. (I mean, really, what if we got a hold of some complex data that says some home run hitters are capable of hitting pitches that normally aren't good pitches to hit homers for...perhaps the only real slugger is Vladimir Guerrero because he smacks balls out of the strike zone, while people who hit 60 or 70 homers in a season off of boring old fastballs are just "routine" home run hitters. But I'm supposed to similarly accept that Jeter blows because he can only make the "routine" plays, no matter how many he makes.)
The second reason ironically pertains to what I was being lectured about when I started this new thread...we don't rate people on what they _could_ do. We don't use a Home Run Average, even though this is easily calculable, because it's really more important what the raw number of HRs is. That shows the real contribution to the team. In theory someone with a high Home Run Average who doesn't play every day _might_ help the team, but in order to really know, that player needs to play regularly. Likewise, a Range Factor probably does indicate what a player _could do_ if that player played regularly, but the number of Outs indicates what the player _actually does_ because he actually does play regularly.
