They'll overpay because he's Derek Jeter and it probably won't matter because he's still a player that can help most teams. I just can't imagine what's going to happen what will happen when Jeter is no longer an asset to a team but that's not the situation right now.

I can't wait until we get "Derek Jeter is Brett Favre" winters.

All players with 100+ G at SS at age 36 since 1961 (added Vizquel, who was injured most of his age-36 year)

Too bad Posnanski isn't Jeter's agent.

I keep seeing the meme that the Yankees and Jeter need each other desperately, it's unthinkable that he goes elsewhere, etc, and while I agree that there's about a 99.9% likelihood that he will re-sign with the team, the more I think about it, the more I think it's not actually true. Willie Mays finished his career with the Mets; Hank Aaron did a farewell tour with the Brewers; Babe Ruth wound down back in Boston with the Braves; Duke Snider ended up with the hated Giants, of all places. What makes Jeter different to these men? Nothing, really, other than that he is the case currently at hand, and the whole thing gets blown out of proportion because it's the Yankees. If Jeter ends his career batting leadoff in Houston, the world will still spin on its axis, and the Yankees' material fan support will not, in fact, be damaged in any meaningful way. If, for instance, this contract is for three years, if he wants another, it will almost certainly have to be elsewhere. That's not out of the question.

People assume that Jeter will go out gracefully, but why? Because he seems like he ought to? There's a huge difference between saying the right things to the media after a ballgame and letting go of the thing that has defined one's life since he was a child. And the truth is that we know nothing about the man. Part of the genius of Derek Jeter as a public figure is that, in fact, we have very, very little to go on, and so can project onto him what we like: this is evidenced both in the outlandish status he enjoys among most Yankees fans as an equal of the likes of Mantle and Gehrig, and in the preposterous fantasies of evil slathered upon him by Yankee haters (not excluding yours truly, from time to time). The truth is that what we know is that he dates hot chicks, he's too smart to get caught doing anything nefarious off the field, and he plays the game with a combination of grace, intelligence, and stubbornness. That's nothing, really. He's cagey and handsome. In some respects he's a perfect blank slate.

I think part of what people are interested in as regards this little drama is that it gives us our first opportunity to see the cracks in his armor, to find out what he's really like. Oh, he MUST stay with the Yankees! Unless he wants to play past 40, at which point you can bet they'll be dropping him like a hot rock. And it could get very complicated long before that. If this year really is the beginning of the end, but he refuses to accept a diminished role -- and I'd say it's an even-money bet he does -- what happens? It'll be a drama, one way or another, played out on the biggest stage in American sport.

Really, the most disappointing possible outcome for a lot of people would be for Jeter to sign a large but not apocalyptically huge contract -- like 4/75, 4/80 -- and stage a minor recovery so that he can slowly fade away and retire a few short months after his 40th birthday, which is a nice round number for a ballplayer, and then persist in quiet, Stan-Musial-like post-career semi-obscurity. Sure, that's a nice story to tell your kids, but it's boring in the here and now. And honestly, it doesn't strike me as the most likely outcome. I have no idea what Jeter will do. If it really turns out he's as bad as he's shown this year, there's a good chance he'll retire before his next contract is out. But I wouldn't bet anything significant on it.

If, for instance, this contract is for three years, if he wants another, it will almost certainly have to be elsewhere. That's not out of the question.

I think another part of the situation is that Derek Jeter knows he's going to get his best offer from the Yankees; he means more to them than to any other club. If they aren't giving him four years, I doubt anyone else will. And certainly no one else is going to see him as a 20million/yr player.

I keep seeing the meme that the Yankees and Jeter need each other desperately, it's unthinkable that he goes elsewhere, etc, and while I agree that there's about a 99.9% likelihood that he will re-sign with the team, the more I think about it, the more I think it's not actually true. Willie Mays finished his career with the Mets; Hank Aaron did a farewell tour with the Brewers; Babe Ruth wound down back in Boston with the Braves; Duke Snider ended up with the hated Giants, of all places. What makes Jeter different to these men? Nothing, really, other than that he is the case currently at hand, and the whole thing gets blown out of proportion because it's the Yankees.

Except that Jeter's 36 and the others you mention, with the exception of Snider, were 40 or over, and there's no question that the Yankees want him to stick around for marketing purposes, if nothing else. If he's truly in a fatal decline phase** that actually makes it worse for them, but in any case, the real problem isn't so much going to be Jeter's ego, as it's going to be finding a replacement.

**As opposed to his slump's being caused by playing through a minor injury that we don't know about. That's unlikely, but one thing about Jeter is that he's the last player to drop even the hint of an excuse for his poor play.

If he's truly in a fatal decline phase** that actually makes it worse for them, but in any case, the real problem isn't so much going to be Jeter's ego, as it's going to be finding a replacement.

The other problem will be they will be forced to stick with him longer than normal. The whole, he's Jeter, he'll snap out of it. They will play him for 600 well below average PAs before even trying to find a sub.

I like Jeter. I don't like the Yankees. Thus, the idea of them giving Jeter a pile of money to hang out at SS not playing terribly well makes me happy. I get to keep seeing a great player I like and, perhaps, a series of Rays division titles.

As opposed to his slump's being caused by playing through a minor injury that we don't know about.

It's not obvious that this is a distinct explanation from age-related decline.

As opposed to his slump's being caused by playing through a minor injury that we don't know about.

It's not obvious that this is a distinct explanation from age-related decline.

True, but that's not always the case. Mickey Vernon won two batting championships, one at 28 and one at 35. In between, he had a few pretty good seasons but also some that were flat out godawful, in spite of playing in almost every game. It wasn't until much later that we learned that he'd been playing through a chronic back injury. This sort of thing isn't unheard of.

Sure, but being older makes one more likely to suffer through things like chronic back injury! Even if it turns out he was playing through a minor injury of some kind, that does not mean we should expect him to improve.

You'd think maybe the Yankees would try resting Jeter. It has been known to improve the quality of the play of an aging star. At his age, Jeter needs to be rested at least 10-15 games a season.

Jeter to sign a large but not apocalyptically huge contract -- like 4/75, 4/80

That's huge given his current age/performance.

I'd be shocked in the Yankees go over 3 years, or give him >$20M. I think the absolute high side of reasonable is 3 years at his current AAV, ~$19M.

And that's a gift of about $20M over his market value.

That's huge given his current age/performance.

Of course it is, but it's not like the one they gave Alex Rodriguez, which continues to pay him $25 million or so until he's 42 or something.

Rest him by moving him to LF for 140-150 games (the remainder would be PTO). That could easily squeeze an extra strong season out of him, maybe more.

Rest him by moving him to LF for 140-150 games (the remainder would be PTO). That could easily squeeze an extra strong season out of him, maybe more.

There are 37 players who've played LF and have over 200 PA; Jeter's OPS would slide him in just below Lastings Milledge. He'd need to add 100 pts. of OPS just to match Seth Smith.

There are 37 players who've played LF and have over 200 PA; Jeter's OPS would slide him in just below Lastings Milledge. He'd need to add 100 pts. of OPS just to match Seth Smith.

This. It's not Jeter's D that's the problem, it's his bat.

This. It's not Jeter's D that's the problem, it's his bat.

A different line of thinking might be that at LF, his defense might be a positive contribution?

How much call is there in LF for that dainty little jump-throw or for the ability to be credited with tagging a base you're 5 feet away from?

A different line of thinking might be that at LF, his defense might be a positive contribution?

You can't carry a 95-100 OPS+ bat in LF. He's not going to become an elite LF at 37 with zero experience. They also already have Gardner/Granderson/Swisher in the OF.

If his defense is only below average at SS (-5 to -10 runs), he can have value there with a 100 OPS+, as long as he's not ridiculously overpaid.

Put him in LF, and you virtually guarantee he's a drag on the team.

A different line of thinking might be that at LF, his defense might be a positive contribution?

True, but I was being kind by using 200 PA as a baseline. Of players who've played any LF and qualify for the batting title, only two have hit worse; Pierre is really a CF (and a good one at that) and he steals many more bases than Jeter. Adding 100 pts. of OPS still puts him at only average in this group.

To get a "strong season" out of Jeter in LF, he'd have to improve significantly as a hitter and prove to be average or better as a LF - a new position - at age 37.

The whole question of what actually becomes of Derek Jeter himself is almost desperately uninteresting, but it brings up the historical question of guys who were so entrenched as elder statesmen that they became millstones for their teams. Before long-term contracts and 5/10 rules, this was obviously less of an issue; you could cut a guy's salary or trade him to the Braves or just cut his sorry behind and let him find a job in the PCL if he was lucky. (Connie Mack never let anyone grow old on his teams, so never faced the problem.) What are the most analogous cases?

Ty Cobb: forced out of Detroit as player and manager by the Dutch Leonard incident, eased out of the game relatively gracefully by Mack
Babe Ruth: very awkward departure from New York, clearly wanted to transition to managing the club but was forced out unceremoniously
Joe DiMaggio: knew when to quit gracefully
Ted Williams: played till the last gasp, but hard to object to that because he was so great; his frozen head could probably still outhit many major leaguers
Stan Musial ... this is perhaps the first case of a guy that truly overstayed his welcome as an uncuttable icon, but: he was uncomplaining, accepted a reduced role, hit .330 at the age of 41 anyway, and everyone was underpaid in those years anyway
Mickey Mantle: knew when to quit
Mays, Aaron, many others (as noted above by Voxter): traded so they could do their swan song elsewhere
Lou Brock: had quite a mystique, and should have been replaced after his 118-SB season, though he was too well-respected to move; this hurt the Cardinals
Brooks Robinson: probably was never overpaid either, in absolute or relative terms; perhaps never actually hurt the Orioles except in 1975, as Weaver didn't let him gather dust at 3B very long
Carl Yastrzemski: I doubt he was ever really a millstone; he was still an acceptable DH at the age of 43
Mike Schmidt: knew when to quit
Robin Yount: probably overpaid (relatively) in the last four years of his career, but a classy guy who never drew any criticism I can recall
Ozzie Smith: overstayed his welcome on the roster and payroll, but probably not on the field, where he slipped into a reduced role
Cal Ripken Jr: drew criticism for hurting his team by his tenaciousness; overstayed his usefulness
Craig Biggio: ditto

None of which perspective helps the Yankees to decide what to do now, not that they're interested in it anyway. The Musial route is the one to go with, for a really good guy who can still play a little. The problem is how much money a player now absorbs, and how unlikely it is that Jeter will be as good as Musial circa Age 41.

Point on LF is that less demanding position will help w/ aches, pains general battery and improve his bat back to 120 OPS+ levels. Speculative, of course. Just a thought.

Mays, Aaron, many others (as noted above by Voxter): traded so they could do their swan song elsewhere

Which, as it happens was the exact same towns they first came to prominence in.

Ozzie Smith: overstayed his welcome on the roster and payroll, but probably not on the field, where he slipped into a reduced role

Isn't he still pissed at LaRussa for this?

Others:
Ernie Banks: played as long as he could. Leo Durocher for one thought he couldn't play much in his final years (but claimed he had to keep Banks in the lineup due to fan pressure).
Kirby Puckett: got a fluke eye disease cutting his career short.
Frank Thomas: left, but this was made easier by his PR missteps and that the Sox had won the flippin' title in 2005.

Point on LF is that less demanding position will help w/ aches, pains general battery and improve his bat back to 120 OPS+ levels. Speculative, of course. Just a thought.

I've seen this thought a lot (including at least one dude who seemed to think it would automatically guarantee that Jeter would bat .340 again), but is there any evidence that it actually works?

Which, as it happens was the exact same towns they first came to prominence in.

The only thing Duke Snider ever did in San Francisco before he went there to play for the Giants was get booed.

A Craig Biggio style end wouldn't be too bad. Biggio's last big contract ended when he was 37. He was still a productive player, scored over 100 runs, but clearly not what he used to be. He took a big pay cut, going from 9.75 million to 3 million. If the Yankees can get Jeter back at a much reduced rate, the move makes sense because there really aren't any good shortstop options on the free agent market.

If the Yankees can get Jeter back at a much reduced rate, the move makes sense because there really aren't any good shortstop options on the free agent market.

It doesn't even have to be much reduced. Just reduced. 2/30 with a vesting option would be a very fair contract, and wouldn't hurt the Yankees that bedly even if he collapsed.

They just need to avoid some 4/80 foolishness.

Others:

George Brett: knew when to quit
Jeff Bagwell: injury forced him to quit at the right time and was still fairly productive the year before he got hurt
Tom Glavine: hung on too long
John Smoltz: hung on too long
Todd Helton: is hanging on too long
Pete Rose: you bet he hung on too long
Ken Griffey: fell asleep

You'd think maybe the Yankees would try resting Jeter. It has been known to improve the quality of the play of an aging star. At his age, Jeter needs to be rested at least 10-15 games a season.

I think Jeter would have gotten a few more days off this year if A-Rod hadn't missed so many games.

Protestations about market value aside, Jeter is going to be a Yankee until he's 40 and he is going to be the starting SS next year. The key off-season move for Cashman is going to be finding someone who can play acceptable defense at SS and 3B while hitting well enough to deserve 300 PA.

They just need to avoid some 4/80 foolishness.

Why? Paying Jeter twice what he's worth won't hurt them any more than paying Pavano infinitely more than he was worth did. They're the Yankees. Money really is no object.

Why? Paying Jeter twice what he's worth won't hurt them any more than paying Pavano infinitely more than he was worth did. They're the Yankees. Money really is no object.

That's just not true. There is a limit, and it seems to be around $210M. They didn't get Beltran and Randy Johnson.

There's also the damage he will do on the field. The longer the contract and higher the AAV, the harder it is to bench him when it becomes necessary.

Point on LF is that less demanding position will help w/ aches, pains general battery and improve his bat back to 120 OPS+ levels

As a 37 year old.

Look - I'm one of those guys who think everyone either vastly overrates or underrates Jeter. He's never been the greatest player in the game (according to bbref, his best year was '99 with a WAR of 8 (the last time he was even over 6.5); fangraphs thinks last year was one of only 2 over 6.5 in his career), but others put too much emphasis on his defense purely as a backlash. He was clearly one of the handful of best at his position for 14 seasons, averaging 697 PA with a 121 OPS+ - that's a hell of a shortstop, even one with defensive questions.

But to assume, or even imagine, that moving Jeter will make him the hitter he was in '07 or '09 when the guy's 37 years old is to believe in the tooth fairy.

Protestations about market value aside, Jeter is going to be a Yankee until he's 40 and he is going to be the starting SS next year.

Unless he retires, this is true. As others have noted, at least for next year there really aren't any better options.

Excellent additions to my list, Dag & AG.

Pitchers are never really analogous to the Brocks and Ripkens. An aging star pitcher can obviously be overpaid. But he won't stay long in a rotation or even in any given game on intangibles and respect alone. You can keep running Todd Helton out there forever because he gets a hit once in a while and might hit .300 again some day, but a starting pitcher will start to stink on ice. Even Tom Glavine, though overpaid, was an average starter in his next-to-last season; in terms of performance, he stayed a month too long on the mound, at most.

With all due respect, how exactly did Ted Williams: "played till the last gasp, but hard to object to that because he was so great"

The man had a 190 OPS+ in 1960, for God's sake, his last year.

SHUT UP!! (standard Jeter article response)

Wow, 94, I assumed his OPS+ was around 105 where it had been hovering all year...
last 120 PAs: .206/.283/.290
seriously he's hit .253/.327/343 since 5/1/10
517 PAs of 85 OPS+ "hitting"
his OPS+ has been under 100 in each of 5 straight months

has he ever hit so poorly for so long before? As far as I can tell no- he hit poorly for the 1st two months of 2008

he was TERRIBLE 2 months into 2004, but then hit .396/.455/.725 in June of that year

With all due respect, how exactly did Ted Williams: "played till the last gasp, but hard to object to that because he was so great"

The man had a 190 OPS+ in 1960, for God's sake, his last year.

My fathers favorite player (despite being a Yankee fan)
using Brock 2 to fill in the war years:
3536 hits
697 HR
2392 RBI
2482 RUNS
2751 BB

career WAR would be around 170 (Ruth and Barry are both at 172- not counting the Babe's pitching- 18 there gets him to 190)

Can someone fix the thread? I believe #16 is stretching it out, at least at my resolution.

He's still pretty much Derek Jeter at Yankee Stadium, hiting .303/.370/.442 for the season. Perhaps he's grown weary of the travel and hired a body double for the road games.

Despite the slump, it won't be a difficult negotiation, but Jeter's 2011 performance could factor into whether he plays the length of the contract.

Can someone fix the thread? I believe #16 is stretching it out, at least at my resolution.

Read the Trader Dave comments, then put him on ignore -- the screen snaps back to normal.

I see 3 years $50M with a bunch of award bonuses. Jeter has marketing value of at least $5M yearly to the Yankees. He's going to get 3000 hits next year and a few more Yankee counting records in the years to come (games played, stolen bases, possibly runs scored, doubles). Plus, Jeter would still be able to claim he is the highest paid SS in baseball.

WRT Williams (similar to Mantle, another player people sometimes see as retiring while still on top of his game): by 1960 he was hurting and would rather have been fishing. He was down to playing 100-110 games a year – slow, with a defensive value of worse than nil – and he'd just turned 42 years old. .316 for him was not a good batting average, and the year before he'd hit .254. As I implied, he could probably have hit above the Mendoza line till he couldn't stand upright anymore, but sometimes (particularly in pre-DH days) a ballplayer just hits a physical limit in terms of playing the whole game.

Doesn't everyone have me on ignore aleady?

If you could convince Derek he would benefit by resting 30-40 games a season that might help. When you are older rest is critical.

I could see Jeter being able to get on base and contribute if he sat out every Sunday and any other day game after a night game. That's what, 30 odd games?

Dusty has done that same routine with older players with some remarkable results.

Barry Larkin played an effective shortstop at age 40 in limited time. It can be done.

I see 3 years $50M with a bunch of award bonuses. Jeter has marketing value of at least $5M yearly to the Yankees. He's going to get 3000 hits next year and a few more Yankee counting records in the years to come (games played, stolen bases, possibly runs scored, doubles). Plus, Jeter would still be able to claim he is the highest paid SS in baseball.

I could live with that. An overpay, but not egregious.

The key is avoiding a 4th and (shudder) 5th year.

44, BA is a relative stat, as we all know. 190 OPS+, OTOH, is a pretty damn impressive stat.

I do grant you that Williams was old and rickety in 1960 (and had a subpar bad season in 1959), but there's no way you will convince me that his defensive value was so low that it materially brought down the value of a 190 OPS+ season.

What I would buy, however, is that in that day and age, Williams' 1960 season was not fully appreciated, because sabermetric concepts had yet to developed to explain to us what he was doing in that, his last season (I mean, look at his OBP of .451, his SLG of .645 and his OPS of 1.096. The only reason Ted didn't lead the league in those categories in 1960 is that he didn't have enough PAs).

Which, as it happens was the exact same towns they first came to prominence in.

This is a great idea. And, what's more, MiLB.com indicates that the only shortstop on the West Michigan Whitecaps has had an even worse year than Jeter! They need a shortstop!

Edit: I was thinking Jetes was from G-Rap, not Kalamazoo. Still, I think he's above playing for the Frontier League, so I think West Michigan would still be the most dignified landing spot.

Having made a smart-ass comment about Jeter, I've got a serious question for the discerning and wise among you.

A quick look at BABIP shows that he's at .298 this year. His career mark is .356, and he hasn't been close to this low since 2004 (.315). Then, I looked at his rates for different types of hits, and the only one that's unusual is his singles rate. I've never gotten a table right here, so I'm not going to try, but here are his rates for each type of hit for the last four years (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007):

1B%: 19.9, 26.2, 23.5, 23.6
2B%: 4.3, 4.2, 4.2, 6.1
3B%: 0.5, 0.2, 0.5, 0.6
HR%: 1.8, 2.8, 1.8, 1.9

I wasn't trying to cherry pick numbers; so far, I've actually gone back 10 years, and there is definite movement (the 2B and HR rate have been gradually drifting downward, as should be expected), but the drop in the singles rate is weird. He had a low singles rate in 2004, but other than that, he's consistently been quite a bit higher than this. If he had hit singles this year at the same rate he did the last three years, he'd have another 25 singles - at which point his seasonal line would be 311/372/418. That's much more in line with his 2007 and 2008 seasons, and looks more like a slow, steady decline.

So, what is appropriate to think about this dramatic drop in his singles? I'm thinking I've got to have missed something, because I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, and I'm a rank amateur. I would appreciate being further educated.

[50] Well, is it luck/sample size, or a decline?

Fangraphs shows his line drive % down, ground ball % up over the rest of his career.

Which still leaves the question, is it luck/sample size, or a decline?

Has Jeter been hurt this year? And would that be a reasonable answer for a lower line drive rate?

#50, my first instinct would be less infield hits as he ages. Don't know if the numbers back that up or not, or if there would be enough loss of IF hits to drop the percent that much.

I'm still not explaining myself well. Williams was obviously a great hitter (in limited action) in 1960, but he had reached the end of his rope as a baseball player. As I originally noted, he's one of the iconic single-team guys who distinctly wasn't hurting his club by sticking around (cf. Mantle), but he pushed his career about as far as he could go physically and psychologically. If you like, we can simply say "knew when to quit" for Williams, recognizing that he's about the only 42-year-old position player who has ever been able to say that honestly.

That seems fairer. Thank you.

What I would buy, however, is that in that day and age, Williams' 1960 season was not fully appreciated, because sabermetric concepts had yet to developed to explain to us what he was doing in that, his last season (I mean, look at his OBP of .451, his SLG of .645 and his OPS of 1.096. The only reason Ted didn't lead the league in those categories in 1960 is that he didn't have enough PAs).

The "only reason"- well he also hit .254/.372/.419 rendering it possible that he was no longer capable (at age 41) of OBPing .451 and slugging .645 over a full seasons worth of PAs...

That being said, WAR runs batting, 40+:


By OPS+ (200+ PAs):


and last total WAR runs batting after 40:

If you check the stats for the 1960 season (which I did to see why none of Williams' numbers were black inked on Baseball Ref) you'd see that TW could have basically gone to the batters circle, struck out a ton and still be amongst the league leaders in 1960 for OBP, SLG and OPS.

That year, Williams had 390 PAs, 310 ABs, BA of .316, OBP of .451, SLG of .645 and an OPS of 1.096 in 113 games.

(Also, it was still a 154 game season in 1960).

The AL leaders that year were as follows:

- BA, Runnels (Boston) with a .320 BA (613 PAs, 528 ABs, 143 games).

- OBP, Yost (Detroit) with a .414 OBP (636 PAs, 497 ABs, 143 games)

- SLG, Maris (NYY) with .581 SLG (578 PAS, 499 ABs, 136 games)

- OPS, Mantle (NYY) with .957 OPS (644 PAS, 527 ABs, 153 games).

#50, my first instinct would be less infield hits as he ages.

My thought too, but on Fangraphs he looks like he's on pace for a normal total of infield hits. Hitting more groundballs at the expense of line drives is the problem. But explaining the decline still can't answer the question: bad luck or aging decline? I go with the latter because aging is something that gets us all sooner or later.

he's one of the iconic single-team guys who distinctly wasn't hurting his club by sticking around (cf. Mantle)

either cf. doesn't mean what you think it means, or you don't realize how well Mantle was playing at the end-
149 OPS+ in 553 PAs in his next to last year and 142 in 547 PAs his last, both years he lead the team.

Mantle is probably one of the clearest examples you can find of how pre-SABR thinking affected someone's career-
in 1967/68 it was conventional wisdom that Mantle was done
.245-22-55 ugh
.237-18-54??? yikes, crapola, he;'s done stick a fork in him.

The league hit .230/.297/.339 in 1968
non-pitchers hit .238/.305/.352

unless you give someone OPS+ or ERA+ they don't really adjust for that.
If you are used to the average batting average being .260, as most observers were in 1967/68, .245 and .237 look BAD
In fact my guess is it takes at least 5 years or more before people BEGIN to adjust their perception of what a good/bad BA or ERA is is- and the late 60s "little dead ball era" didn't last that long. In 1969 league average was .246/.321/.369 (with pitchers hitting) and .250/.322/.379 in 1970 (The NL was at
.258/.329/.392 in 1970)

What's way, way down for Jeter this year is his performance as a first-pitch hitter (.279 BA, .652 OPS in '10 as compared to .387/.956 lifetime). Last year, Jeter hit .448 on the first pitch.

He's had two very tough stretches this year, each about a ninth of the season, where he's hit .164. One of those stretches is ongoing right now.

To see if there's any connection between these two phenomena, you'd need a game log that was broken down further--a plate appearance log.

Or a way to view all PAs by count.

Don't have enough time to go back and find all of 'em, but just looking at the last eighteen games, when Jeter has hit .157 (11-for-70), he's been 1-for-9 in first-pitch at-bats. The percentage of at-bats in which Jeter swings at the first pitch is down a bit in this time frame--just under 13% as opposed to nearly 17% for the whole season (and just over 16% lifetime), so he's clearly more tentative at the plate right now as a result of his slump.

If Jeter doesn't come out of it in September (which has been his best month historically), then something might really be at work here. And such an occurrence might give the Yankees pause about the type of contract they would be willing to extend.

We've been through this several times, but Mantle's high OPS+ numbers in his last few years were of more theoretical than real value to the Yankees. Not that his low BA's were any more reflective, but his OPS figures were heavily padded by walks, which didn't result in many runs on a team where he was surrounded by stiffs. Just look at his actual runs scored and you'll see my point; even adjusting for the era they're extremely low, compared to what you'd expect from his high OBP.

Compare his ratio of walks to runs for most of his career, and then look at that ratio after 1964, and especially in his last two years. He was still getting on base a high percentage of the time, but his runs scored and RBI weren't reflective of that.

One of the main causes of this drop in runs scored was the overall decline of offense in the AL, which wasn't Mantle's fault, but it was also due to his declining mobility on the basepaths, and to the weakness of those surrounding him in the lineup. That last point can't be blamed on Mantle, either, but that doesn't make the times he was left stranded on base any more valuable. Nor did his lack of mobility in the field contribute much added value to his team, especially in the innumerable games where he was playing through injuries.

I doubt if Mantle himself wasn't aware of this, and I also doubt if it didn't contribute to his decision to retire. The low BA's in his last four years (and especially the last two) were only a relatively small symptom of his overall decline.

BTW what's with the screwed up format on this one thread?

The low BA's in his last four years (and especially the last two) were only a relatively small symptom of his overall decline.

Well yes he was in decline
but Mantle in decline was still better than anyone else the Yankees had
In 1967 league ISO was .115, Mantle's was .189
in 1968 league ISO was .109, Mantle's was .161

Let's look at runs and rbis. The Yankees were below average in runs both years- dead last in 1967

In 1967 the average AL player had .263 [runs +rbi] per out, Mantle was at 118/347 (.340)
In 1968 the average AL player had .244 [runs +rbi] per out, Mantle was at 111/348 (.319)

despite yours and everyone else's perception- Mantle remained a very effective offensive player right up until the end- no he wasn't the player he'd been in his prime, but very few are- but Mantle's problem wasn't that people thought he wasn't as good as he used to be, his problem was that people, erroneously, thought he wasn't any good PERIOD.

BTW what's with the screwed up format on this one thread?


Traderdave's post (#16) using the code tags to quote broke the page width. Personally I had to put him on ignore to make it readable.

[61]:

Sycophant-Laden, I meant "cf. Mantle for another guy who wasn't hurting his club in his last years." (I'm having a lot of problems communicating this week, not just on Primer, ether :-D) I agree with your analysis in #62. But of course, Mantle was in a lot of pain: sometimes your Strat card factored by your theoretical aging curve could last another 2-3 years, but your body says no.

Traderdave's post (#16) using the code tags to quote broke the page width. Personally I had to put him on ignore to make it readable.

I bow down before My New God. How did you ever figure that out? Everyone ignore Traderdave, at least for this thread.

------------------

Well yes he was in decline
but Mantle in decline was still better than anyone else the Yankees had
In 1967 league ISO was .115, Mantle's was .189
in 1968 league ISO was .109, Mantle's was .161

Let's look at runs and rbis. The Yankees were below average in runs both years- dead last in 1967

In 1967 the average AL player had .263 [runs +rbi] per out, Mantle was at 118/347 (.340)
In 1968 the average AL player had .244 [runs +rbi] per out, Mantle was at 111/348 (.319)

despite yours and everyone else's perception- Mantle remained a very effective offensive player right up until the end- no he wasn't the player he'd been in his prime, but very few are- but Mantle's problem wasn't that people thought he wasn't as good as he used to be, his problem was that people, erroneously, thought he wasn't any good PERIOD.

That's fine, as long as you're not thinking that this is what I was saying. Maybe I should just put it this way:

Most people in 1968 looked at Mantle's .237 / 18 / 54, saw the way he was limping around the diamond, and figured he was washed up, or at best a shadow of his former self. They were wrong about the washed up part, but right about the shadow part, and they also saw the general direction in which he was headed. And believe me, he wasn't a pretty sight to behold.

Many people today, especially those who couldn't have seen firsthand the sad contrast between the early Mantle and late Mantle, look at those OPS+ and ISO numbers and see him as a sort of one eyed king in the land of the blind. And they're also right, in that compared to anyone else the Yankees were likely to come up with in 1969, he probably still would've been a big plus---even with a 25% decline in batting production.

But in the end, I think that the Mick himself took stock of the situation, tallied up the wear and tear on his body, knew that he wasn't likely to get any younger**, and very wisely saw the writing on the wall. Perhaps this is just a philosophical difference, since I much prefer athletes who don't press their luck to the point of merely adding to their career totals. I'll take the examples of Dimaggio and Schmidt any day over the examples of Rose or Ripken. And when the time comes for Jeter, I hope he doesn't just hang on for the counting stats.

**and remember, Mantle (seriously) thought he wasn't likely to live much past 40

I think Jeter has plenty of good baseball left in him. I realize that you can't just look at splits, and throw out one side of them, but . . .

He's hitting .230/.294/.307 on the road. I don't see any reason why he'd sustain that, right? That's laughably bad.
He's hittting .296/.367/.391 against power pitchers, compared to .277/.370/.406 for his career.
But finesse guys are killing him: 329 PA, .227/.289/.297. I realize that power/finesse is are imprecise buckets, but . . . you'd think this would be otherwise, for a player in serious decline -- getting killed by power pitchers, while maintaining his career numbers against finesse pitchers.

He's definitely slowing down, but I think he has a non-dead cat bounce left.

If this year really is the beginning of the end, but he refuses to accept a diminished role -- and I'd say it's an even-money bet he does -- what happens?

I respect your opinion on this, but do you really think that there's a 50% chance that Jeter doesn't accept a role better for the team? He was on the bench this afternoon, and I believe he had a "day of rest" a few days ago. I might have missed it, but I didn't see anything in the press or during the game coverage that portrayed him as anything but a "team first" guy. I would think that if he is acting in the best interests of DJ, rather than the best interests of the Yankees, he'd freak out on them about this. He's a FA to be, and if he should hit a home run or drive in some runs in those games, it might cost him money.

And what's wrong with the pagewidth? Looks fine to me!

"do you really think that there's a 50% chance that Jeter doesn't accept a role better for the team?"

Where was THIS on a tee not so many years back?

Wait, it was.

:)

I bow down before My New God. How did you ever figure that out? Everyone ignore Traderdave, at least for this thread.

Try taking Srul off ignore.

Don't think I've ever "ignored" anyone before, but - sorry traderdave - that works like a charm!

You know that Jim has some sort of list of ignored posters, and he can't figure out why Traderdave is such a hot commodity.

Also, that most of us are going to forget about this, and Traderdave will say something interesting in a future thread that none of us will read.

do you really think that there's a 50% chance that Jeter doesn't accept a role better for the team? He was on the bench this afternoon, and I believe he had a "day of rest" a few days ago.

I guess even-money was an overstatement, but it strikes me that Jeter is no more or less likely than a lot of other great players to understand when he's done. It took him years to grapple with his defensive problems. He let the Yankees stick Rodriguez at third when everybody not named Mr & Mrs Jeter knew it would be better for the team if he moved. Not, obviously, that this was the end of the world, but the Yankees would have been a better team if Jeter had agreed to do a Yount and let Rodriguez play short. Nobody knows what went on behind the scenes there -- there's no evidence that he was even asked if he was willing to move -- but I think it's possible that, like many other ballplayers, he's not really capable of evaluating his own contributions to the team in an even-handed way.

The truth is that we don't really have a firm grasp on how "team-first" Jeter is or isn't -- but the real variable is his understanding of what a "team-first" thing to do would be. It's not out of the question that Jeter thinks, and will continue to think, that playing 150 games a season at SS is the way to win ballgames in New York. That's why I think there's a strong chance that he doesn't accept a diminished role: he won't see it is necessary, and the Yankees might not see it as appropriate to fight him. And I do think that it's probable that he has a strong streak of stubbornness in him, the sort of thing that has contributed to his ability to play well to this point but might detract from his ability to accept that he's not playing well in the future.

I think that if Joe Girardi, with at least one ring and a significant playing career behind him, tells Jeter to move to another role, I have a lot of trouble believing that Jeter will say, "No."

Maybe it's naive of me, but I think it isn't generally up to the player to accept a role, but it's up to management to be strong enough to push him there if it's best for everyone.

So I won't penalize Jeter for allowing A-Rod to go to third - if Torre made that choice, I wouldn't expect Jeter to stand up and disagree with it.

The truth is that we don't really have a firm grasp on how "team-first" Jeter is or isn't

Agreed. But I think that he gets less benefit of the doubt in this direction than any other player I can think of. As a longtime Jeter watcher, I don't feel comfortable speculating about his tendencies this way. I don't see any evidence about his place on the "selfish->team first" scale, but there's a ton of speculation that he's selfish. I guess maybe we'll see.

#16 screwed up the page? Man, you guys need to upgrade from those 14" CRT monitors...

"Maybe it's naive of me,"

We will see, eventually......

Why is Helton hanging on too long? It's not as if he's tarnishing a HoF career...they're not going to vote in a guy who played his entire career in Colorado and finished with 1200 RBI's. His only shot is that his back recovers and he has more years like 2009 than 2008 and 2010 (when he was hobbled by his back).

And it's a different question, but how many guys walk away from 20-30 million?

Does it help to close tags?



Edit: Nope

TraderDave goes on ignore for now.

EDIT2: Having looked at the comment I can say, "Don't use the code tag for quoting"

It turns off the auto-wrap functionality.

Blockquote or italics work fine.

But I think that he gets less benefit of the doubt in this direction than any other player I can think of.

Maybe around here. In the mainstream media, he gets more credit for things he doesn't do and hasn't said than any other player I can think of. Tim McCarver talked about his freaking eyes on air.

[perhaps] Jeter thinks, and will continue to think, that playing 150 games a season at SS is the way to win ballgames in New York

And as long as they're winning ballgames at their current rate, it would be hard to refute him.

It would be interesting to run a Brock6 or ZIPS projection on Mantle and see what it tosses up for 1969-70. The batting average for the league as a whole jumped 16 points, and the slugging percentage by 30 points in 1969; if Mantle had captured all of that, he still would have hit just .253 and slugged .428, which are hardly Mantlesque numbers. That even may be a little bit generous, since Mantle would have been an year older and even more decrepit.

A ridiculous amount of his value was bound up in his walks by that time. That's basically all he had left.

Josh Hartnett would be playing me in a shitty college movie. (which I just graduated from, with a degree in......journalism! And, yeah, sportswriting, at least in my limited experience, kinda sucks. Not "this is difficult in any way" kind of suck. But "I'd rather be drinking on a Friday night than writing a crappy high school football game story" kind of suck.)



Anyway, I still don't know how those Moneyball A's didn't win one World Series. There's an alternate universe out there where they did, and I probably did all sorts of things better. Like lose my virginity earlier. Or not convince myself sportswriting was the way to go.