Ripken always struck me as just boring

I have met Ripken. Very personable and friendly guy, though after talking to him for awhile I still had no idea what kind of a man he is. Probably the bane of celebrity: you meet way more people than your Dunbar number can possibly accommodate.

Imagine Jeter as a career Pirate, getting maybe 100 fewer PA per year and hovering around 2800 career hits. We're probably worried that he might not make the HOF.

Heck, his fielding might warrant keeping him out. To take those numbers too literally, a Jeter losing around 15% of his offense might not be at 60 WAR yet.

and the clemens saga has proved only that the public and the media has already decided who is Good and who is EVULLL and no amount of anything is gonna change their minds.

It's incredible, isn't it, how some guys just get hated, and some get loved, and it's often very unclear how that happened. I wonder if A-Rod had had a PR guy planting nothing but positive stories about him for the last 15 years, how he'd be looked at.

Makes me wonder, in an alternate universe, what would have happened if A-Rod arrived in NY and then said "I'm a better hitter than Jeter, a better baserunner and a MUCH better fielding shortstop. I'm the new shortstop and he can move to 3B. Get used to it. If you aren't in favor of this, then you aren't trying to help the Yankees become a better team and you're not welcome here."

I'm sure that would have played out well. AlexRodriguez leaves Texas and tells the most successful franchise in baseball history how to be winners.

I think that if Jeter were not a Yankee, he would have been grossly underrated by traditional baseball fans. He'd probably be about as famous as Jeff Kent. That would probably make him one of the BTF favorites. Imagine Jeter as a career Pirate, getting maybe 100 fewer PA per year and hovering around 2800 career hits. We're probably worried that he might not make the HOF.

Except that the real Jeter has over 3300 hits and over 69 WAR. The other answer to that is that if Kent hadn't spent the better part of his career being a first class bunghole, he might have gotten a few more positive notices.

A closer comp to Jeter would be Barry Larkin, who was a roughly comparable hitter, a better fielder, played far fewer games, and wound up with an almost identical career value. How long did it take Larkin to make the HoF? Three years, and with over 85% of the vote. I'd ascribe the two year delay to his many, many games lost due to injuries and his lack of any significant postseason imprint. Give him Jeter's career numbers and postseason highlights and he would've breezed in on the first ballot, regardless of the uniform he played in.

and the clemens saga has proved only that the public and the media has already decided who is Good and who is EVULLL and no amount of anything is gonna change their minds.

It's incredible, isn't it, how some guys just get hated, and some get loved, and it's often very unclear how that happened.

I like both of those players (it's the laundry), but it's not exactly a mystery why they're not loved. Clemens was a great competitor, but there were plenty of times when that competitiveness got expressed in violent temper outbursts and strange missiles hurled at opposing players. And A-Rod (in the haters' narrative) ditched his team for an outsized payoff and kind of went downhill from there. Even before the unproven PED accusations against Clemens and A-Rod's failed test, these weren't exactly the sort of players that most fans would warm up to whenever they weren't performing on the MVP or CYA levels.

I wonder if A-Rod had had a PR guy planting nothing but positive stories about him for the last 15 years, how he'd be looked at.

He probably would've done better if he'd just spent half an hour after each game signing autographs. He wouldn't have needed a press agent for that.

if Jeter were not a Yankee, he would have been grossly underrated

If Jeter were not a Yankee, he would not have played on four World Champions in his first five ML seasons, and he would not have defied the laws of baseball gravity. He'd have been chased off shortstop à la Michael Young by the first Elvis Andrus to come along, and he'd have settled somewhere else on the diamond and continued to hit .300 indefinitely. As Andy notes, that nets him his 3,300 hits, and puts him in Paul Molitor territory, even as a fulltime DH. I don't know if he'd be underrated or overrated, but he'd be an easy Hall of Famer, even if he'd bounced from Milwaukee to Toronto to Minneapolis. Leading the league in hits in your late 30s will attract attention in any city :)

half an hour after each game signing autographs

I dunno if he still does it, but Jeter years ago had more stamina for autograph-signing than anyone I've seen except – well, except Ripken. There is something about that kind of agreeable schmoozing, meaningless as it may be in the big picture: it shows you are OK with people liking you.

Maybe Pettitte isn't good enough in a historical sense to care much about. People don't seem to care much about Giambi's use, especially out here. (Maybe people in other places have just forgotten about him.)

But. as Walt notes, if Jeter plays elsewhere and loses 100 PAs per season, he's down to 2,800 hits. If he was moved off SS at age 30 and is a subpar 3Bman, is he still a lock if he doesn't return from the broken ankle in 2013. Does he become Harold Baines?

If he comes back and plays like most old guys play, and limps to 2875 or 2910 career hits as a Pirate, he's not going to stroll in.

He way overbid on A-Rod to start with. Hadn't the Yankees just signed Jeter to a $190M contract? Steinbrenner made it clear he wasn't going to go any higher than $190-200M at most on A-Rod. There weren't a lot of teams in the derby to start with since the $$$ were so high. What the heck did Hicks go up to $250M for? I thought these rich guys were supposed to be smart businessmen. Hicks apparently was a lousy poker player.

The chronology was the other way around. Hicks signed A-Rod to his mega-contract first. That prompted Steinbrenner, who had passed on locking up Jeter earlier, to get a deal done for considerably more ($189M) than before Hicks & A-Rod moved the market.

**A pretty good test of that would be their reaction to the time in 2004 when he dove into the stands against the Red Sox for that foul ball. After every announcer and every player chimed in on what a great play it was, an entire cottage industry sprung up around here to Oliver Stone it down to a misplayed routine popup, as if the point HAD TO BE MADE that it wasn't as good as everyone out there was saying it was. As if Jeter himself was somehow to blame because the judges awarded him a 9.8 instead of an 8.2 for his effort.

It wasn't some kind of abstract lament--Pokey Reese had made a catch of similar difficulty look easy earlier, because he could actually play a great shortstop, yet Jeter got all the plaudits for his defense because he fell into the stands after making the catch; and it wasn't even directed at Jeter so much as the media for their habit of inflating the perceived defensive value of players who make a play splashily because they couldn't get there in time to make it cleanly. The reaction had less to do with Yankee-Haters than with the anti-conventional wisdom thing that sometimes gets talked about around here.

Edit: And yes I know it's been nearly a decade.

Look, they both utter nothing but platitudes whenever they're in front of a microphone.

I don't recall Ripken ever throwing one of his teammates under a bus the way Jeter did to A-Rod.

You can pick apart this or that and try to magnify the differences between the two of them, but IMO it mostly comes down to the laundry. If you took the Yankee haters out of the anti-Jeter mix**, that'd reduce it by about 90%.

That's possible, but I have to say that I really don't have a strong dislike of Jeter, and I hate the Yankees more than any team in professional sports. I think he has built a certain relationship with the media, deliberately, and I don't fault him for that. If the "calculated" came off as insulting, I didn't mean it that way. I meant that I get the impression that Jeter isn't a boring person so much as a person who chooses to be boring in interviews on purpose, because it's a way to avoid controversy. Michael Jordan also had a calculated media image, as did Kobe Bryant (although the rape accusation really ended that).

I don't like the way that the media treats him, but that's not his fault. I also think that we lost the best we could have seen of A-Rod in order to keep an inferior player at SS, but that's also not Jeter's fault. I do think he's shown a few things that aren't particularly nice, but not an overwhelming number.

A pretty good test of that would be their reaction to the time in 2004 when he dove into the stands against the Red Sox for that foul ball. After every announcer and every player chimed in on what a great play it was, an entire cottage industry sprung up around here to Oliver Stone it down to a misplayed routine popup, as if the point HAD TO BE MADE that it wasn't as good as everyone out there was saying it was. As if Jeter himself was somehow to blame because the judges awarded him a 9.8 instead of an 8.2 for his effort.

Those arguments are ridiculous. It was a great play. It wasn't the greatest play in the history of the sport, but it was the sort of play where you had to be talented, be in the right place at the right time, and execute perfectly.

Except that the real Jeter has over 3300 hits and over 69 WAR. The other answer to that is that if Kent hadn't spent the better part of his career being a first class bunghole, he might have gotten a few more positive notices.

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make. Jeter, with the same talent and durability, but not on a series of Yankee teams with powerhouse offenses, on a relatively weak team, in the lower-scoring NL, would probably lose about 100 PA per year simply because of reduced lineup turnover. So we're talking about the same player, without the advantages that get him to 3300 hits.

Also, Larkin was arguably a significantly better player than Jeter is now with all of the advantages; it depends on how much of a career voter you are. Jeter has the best two years, but they're very close in OPS+ on career (Jeter 117, Larkin 116). Larkin was a better defender and a better baserunner. Jeter obviously is significantly more durable. Even right now, with the benefit of nearly 3000 additional PA, Jeter is only slightly ahead of Larkin in career WAR (which some might argue understates Jeter's defensive liability).

I would have a tough time figuring out who is the better player, actually. Jeter has a lot more career and those two monstrous seasons, but I think Larkin's prime is better than Jeter's, and there's some adjustment to be made for run environment.

It wasn't some kind of abstract lament--Pokey Reese had made a catch of similar difficulty look easy earlier, because he could actually play a great shortstop, yet Jeter got all the plaudits for his defense because he fell into the stands after making the catch; and it wasn't even directed at Jeter so much as the media for their habit of inflating the perceived defensive value of players who make a play splashily because they couldn't get there in time to make it cleanly. The reaction had less to do with Yankee-Haters than with the anti-conventional wisdom thing that sometimes gets talked about around here.

BTW, anyone else remember the absolutely phenomenal play A-Rod made to save that game? 11th inning, bases loaded, no outs. Diving stop on a liner down the line, tags the bag to get the force and then, from his knees, lofts a Marino-esque touch pass over or around the runner dashing for home to get the double play. A far more difficult (and in my eyes, no less spectacular) play.

For all the snark and venom directed toward Jeter, there is another aspect to consider... he is, universally, the most respected player on the field by OTHER players and managers. Poll after poll, survey after survey, article after article, for 15+ years we've read and heard he's the player other players want to emulate... the example managers and coaches tell their young kids to follow, etc etc. I'm not a Jeter schill--he's been a very good player for along time, but he's never, ever been the best player on his own team (well, maybe 1998-1999). Yes, some of those same polls say he's the most overrated player in the game--while at the same time listing him as the most admired. But still.

But. as Walt notes, if Jeter plays elsewhere and loses 100 PAs per season, he's down to 2,800 hits.

I doubt there's anywhere he could go and lose close to 100 PA per season (provided he's still hitting at the top of the lineup, which he undoubtedly would have been in Pittsburgh or any similar place). It's probably going to be more in the 40-60 range, at the most. (For instance, Tony Womack spent the entire season batting in the leadoff hole for the Pirates in 1997-98, he had 689 PA in 155 games in 97 and 704 in 159 in 98, which was only about 30 fewer than Jeter averaged in seasons of similar number of games).

While the Yankees' offense throughout the Jeter era was going to generate more runs (and trips around the order), they would lose a lot more ninth-inning ABs than the league's bottom feeders, negating some of that edge.

For all the snark and venom directed toward Jeter, there is another aspect to consider... he is, universally, the most respected player on the field by OTHER players and managers. Poll after poll, survey after survey, article after article, for 15+ years we've read and heard he's the player other players want to emulate... the example managers and coaches tell their young kids to follow, etc etc.

Folks that were in the WBC with him -- even those with reason to have some issues, such as Dustin Pedroia & Chipper Jones -- lauded Jeter as a teammate. Haters are going to hate, but they really have to have their heads in the sand (or somewhere) to carry on about Jeter.

I doubt there's anywhere he could go and lose close to 100 PA per season (provided he's still hitting at the top of the lineup, which he undoubtedly would have been in Pittsburgh or any similar place).

I don't know that it's so clear that he'd lead off. Jeter really strikes me as ideally a #2 hitter: high average, sees a lot of pitches, a decent amount of power.

I don't know that it's so clear that he'd lead off. Jeter really strikes me as ideally a #2 hitter: high average, sees a lot of pitches, a decent amount of power.

Yes, and I accounted for that when I said it would be 40-60 tops (and I suspect that's on the high side). Over a full season, a No. 2 guy should get, on average, 18 fewer PA than a leadoff hitter, so the number could fall off a little from the -30 Womack averaged.

Hell, Ichiro got 721 PA on a terrible offensive team in a pitcher's park in 2011. You're just not going to find 100 extra PAs for comparable spots in the batting order between any two teams (and the worse team you have, the more likely the guy will keep hitting toward the top of the order).

I don't know that it's so clear that he'd lead off. Jeter really strikes me as ideally a #2 hitter: high average, sees a lot of pitches, a decent amount of power.

The Yankees have batted Jeter second more often than he's led off. Usually he has been the best option for either role, and it is a matter of what their other options were, along with alternating right & left-handed hitters. IIRC, there is a difference of about 15 AB over a season for each slot dropped in the batting order. Not a huge deal.

I'd love to know how Jeter's offense vs. defense chasm would be treated if he were a lifetime Pirate. Presumably, his non-Triple-Crowny offense would then be underrated, a la Larkin, Trammell or even Biggio. His defense would probably also be less highly rated -- I think chances are he would be thought of as average, rather than great, while of course he would in fact still be terrible.

How would the stathead community react to someone who played a key position and was better offensively than people thought, but who also was thought of as an ok fielder when he was in fact a huge defensive liability at said key position? It's not a Piazza/Kent thing, because people both properly appreciate their offense since they were power hitters, and think that they were bad fielders (in fact, statheads would probably argue they were better defensively than their reputations). I can't think of anyone offhand who fits the description I gave. I dunno the answer, but I think it's an interesting hypothetical. (I suppose the moral of which is, don't worry about how players are "rated", just do you.)

I didn't realize that the difference in PA would be so little. I thought it was more like 50 PA in a season per lineup spot. So we're probably only talking about losing a couple of hundred PA over the career.

How would the stathead community react to someone who played a key position and was better offensively than people thought, but who also was thought of as an ok fielder when he was in fact a huge defensive liability at said key position? It's not a Piazza/Kent thing, because people both properly appreciate their offense since they were power hitters, and think that they were bad fielders (in fact, statheads would probably argue they were better defensively than their reputations). I can't think of anyone offhand who fits the description I gave.

I don't think Jeter stays at SS on a lousy team, especially if the team is struggling with the pitching staff and doesn't have a solid CF. The Yankees could afford Jeter's defense because they were so stacked in other positions, and once a team wins a few championships, it's hard to move an established player. (Especially if the likely spot to move him is occupied by a guy as good as Bernie Williams.)

I think there's a reasonable chance that Jeter the Pirate becomes HOF CF Derek Jeter. Or marginal relief pitcher Derek Jeter, since we're talking about the Pirates.

How would the stathead community react to someone who played a key position and was better offensively than people thought, but who also was thought of as an ok fielder when he was in fact a huge defensive liability at said key position?

One thing that makes this very interesting question harder is that most guys nowadays are pretty much as good offensively as people think. The stathead revolution has led to there being fewer unheralded OBP gods, which was the traditional route to being underrated at the plate.

Brian Giles and Ray Durham might be the closest matches to your criteria: underrated offensively and overrated defensively (at their positions), at least in terms of the available metrics and how their managers used them. Statheads did like Giles quite a bit. If I could remember anything anybody ever said about Ray Durham, I would know more about him :)

ARod's a baseball savant. Put him on a field with a bat, a glove, and a healthy body and he's a force of nature. Everything is easy and perfect for him without so much as trying hard.

What do you base that on? How do you know he does not put in a ton of effort learning his trade?