Francesspool just whizzed through a piperazine, cover to cover…just to stay awake for this!
With his superlative and suspicious season (according to Skip Bayless), Derek Jeter is climbing the rungs of history. His latest feat, passing Willie Mays on the hit list, has placed him closer to the Mt. Rushmore of Yankees, if not immortals.
And it seems each show on WFAN doubles as a symposium on Jeter’s place in Yankees history, if not immortals.
This is where the debate becomes dubious. For all his splendor, clutch hits, catches and throws, Jeter has the serendipity of doing it as a Yankee and the misfortune of doing it as a Yankee. Had Jeter done this for any other team he’d be the best player in franchise history. But as a Yankee, I’m sorry to say he’s not among the top five pinstriped deities.
...Jeter has his 3,000 hits, a .300 average, a gold glove or two, five rings and a partridge in a pear tree. But he’s NOT BABE RUTH. He’s NOT LOU GEHRIG. He’s NOT JOE DIMAGGIO. He’s NOT MICKEY MANTLE.
What do those men have in common, sans Jeter? They dominated their sport. Jeter never even won an MVP, nor did he even finish second in the voting.
...And stop putting us pundits, writers, reporters, columnists and commentators in the eternally awkward position of picking at Jeter. It should be enough that he’s an immortal, his bronze bust assured five years to the second after he retires, both in the Bronx and Cooperstown, his number retired from Monument to Yellowstone Park.
If you want those of us who eulogized Jeter last year to apologize, you got it. I’m sorry. But to bend the other way and embalm the man in faerie dust is equally misguided. He’s human. I shook the man’s hand. And unlike Mr. Bayless, I never questioned the ingredients in Jeter’s newfound fountain of youth. He’s just that great. But just not the greatest.
Repoz
Posted: September 14, 2012 at 06:34 PM |
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1. Joe Bivens, Minor Genius Posted: September 14, 2012 at 06:49 PM (#4236209)I like Keidel's list of 5, actually.
It's bad form to put something so obviously wrong in a piece attacking other people for being obviously wrong.
edit...and Phil Plantier.
(Also is not better than "LOU GEHRIG", "JOE DIMAGGIO" or "MICKEY MANTLE".)
I assumed the abbreviated Newsstand headline just degenerated into mumbling profanity, and I understood completely.
I'm not sure Rivera was a more valuable Yankee than Bernie Williams.
Jeter is almost a lock to finish with the most hits by a right-handed American League hitter (passing Molitor, 3319) and the most hits while primarily playing SS (passing Wagner, 3420), while even having a decent shot at the most hits for one team (passing Cobb, 3900). No one has won more World Series under the three-tiered playoff format than Jeter. It really isn't whether you take someone off the Yankee's Mt. Rushmore, it's whether you add a 5th.
6th for Jeter seems right.
I'd put Berra clearly ahead. bWAR is only giving him 30 runs career in fielding, and I think you have to give him a lot of credit for managing the pitching staffs on all those WS winning teams.
Rank Player Offensive WAR
1. Babe Ruth 131.0
2. Mickey Mantle. 111.9
3. Lou Gehrig. 108.3
4. Derek Jeter. 91.6
5. Joe DiMaggio 70.3
6. Bernie Williams 59.5
7. Yogi Berra. 53.3
8. Bill Dickey. 50.4
9. Alex Rodriguez 48.4
10. Tony Lazzeri 45.1
Good chance of breaking 100.
Nobody is putting you in this position, except you. If you really think that people can't figure out for themselves that Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, and DiMaggio were better players than Jeter, that's your problem, not ours.
BTW, Jeter just passed Mays on the hit list.
Thanks for saving me the effort. Jeter in the #6 spot right below Berra is just about right. Rivera is obviously better at what he does than Jeter, but what Rivera does isn't nearly as important.
Yeah, he always laughably feels he's the Yankee rebel. It am what it am.
Playing time for the team/franchise, only.
AL East:
Baltimore - Yes
Toronto - Yes
Tampa - Yes
NY - No (Ruth)
Boston - No (Williams)
AL Central:
Chicago - Yes
Detroit - No (Cobb)
KC - Maybe? (Brett)
Cleveland - Yes
Minnesota - No (Johnson)
AL West:
Texas - Yes
Oakland - Yes
Los Angeles - Yes
Seattle - Yes
NL East:
Washington - Yes
Atlanta - No (Aaron)
Philadelphia - No (Schmidt)
New York - Yes
Miami - Yes
NL Central:
Cincinnati - Yes
St. Louis - No (Musial)
Pittsburgh - No (Wagner)
Milwaukee - Yes
Chicago - Yes
Houston - Yes
NL West:
San Francisco - No (Mays)
Los Angeles - Yes
Arizona - Yes
San Diego - Yes
Colorado - Yes
I figure there are other better players that PLAYED for some teams, but because they played on multiple teams, their value was split (like F.Robinson, R.Henderson).
But even if you're going strictly on career value, and only counting the years a player spent with the team in question, you'd still be hard pressed to pick Jeter over either Ripken, Brett, or Rose, or arguably Speaker for his Indians' career alone.
White Sox -- No (Thomas ... Jeter can't make up that peak gap)
Cleveland -- No (Speaker played half his career elsewhere but still put up 71 WAR for the Indians; also Feller)
Texas -- who is the greatest Ranger? Toby Harrah?
Oakland -- maybe but only because the A's have always been owned by cheapskates. Foxx has a case based on peak over career
Seattle -- Jeter -8.4 dWAR; Edgar -9.8 (one of my new favorite factoids)
Washington -- sure but only because Rizzo has shut down Strasburg
Mets -- c'mon, your average park league softball team has a better player than the Mets
Miami -- for now, but Giancarlo will crush Jeter like a Chris Volstad hanging breaking ball
Cincinatti -- Mr. Rose would like a word with you and Morgan was the Speaker of his day
Milwaukee -- Yount vs. Jeter is interesting
Chicago -- Banks, Santo, various pitchers of the early 1900s and Sosa's peak are good debates
Houston -- No, Bagwell
Dodgers -- Robinson, arguably Koufax and Snider and Garvey laps him in gift baskets**
Padres -- Gwynn vs. Jeter is interesting
* Brooks vs. Jeter is a pretty interesting debate actually
** one after the evening in question, one after the birth
It wouldn't be hard for me to say that three (or all four) are better than Jeter (with just one franchise).
Frank Thomas.
Prediction: When Jeter passes Honus Wagner next year on the hits list there will be a columnist who writes that, despite passing Wagner, people should stop with the notion that Jeter is better than Wagner. And no one will ever have said that.
I was also mildly surprised.
Also, I was pretty shocked at how poorly WAR treated Yogi. IMO, it's fairly indefensible to say that Jeter was better than Yogi.
Joke all you want, but I'll take Tom Seaver.
Joke all you want, but I'll take Tom Seaver.
Bob Gibson plunked Ron Fairly for giving him a compliment.
Great story, well told. But he never hit Fairly while Joe Torre was catching.
Brett's a maybe?
Nope, no arc on his pitches. Ump either calls it too heavy or it gets hammered. Also he can't hold his beer.
In fairness, Mariano's 13 WAR/PA is pretty hard to beat.
Grove?
If you mean among peak SS maybe. But career as a SS, he's mighty damn high.
I know, one could claim that Jeter hasn't played SS in about 15 years so why should we give him SS credit over guys like Banks and Yount. But, y'know, at SS he stood (barring the occasional dive) so at SS I count him.
I vote for Ivan Rodriguez with Texas, and there's no way Jeter was better than Oakland only Rickey Henderson. Their WAR is similar, but Jeter needed 3000+ PA more than Rickey. Rickey has about 48 WAA just with Oakland vs 34 for Jeter. In fact Rickey has about 23 WAA as a Yankee in just 2700+ PA vs Jeter's 34 in 11,000+ PA. I'm not even sure Jeter was a better Yankee than Rickey.
He'd be teh greatest Wilmington Quickstep EVAR!!!!eleven!
Cobb yes but Speaker split his career between Boston and Cleveland pretty close to straight down the middle.
Like Grushenko, I'd have said Little Pudge offhand, and WAR bears me out. The eleven top Rangers in WAR (for the Rangers, and they've rarely kept their stars very long):
Rodriguez 47, Palmeiro 41, Bell 35, Sundberg 32, Hough 30, Rogers 29, Harrah 30, Gonzalez 29, Kinsler 28, AROD 25, Young 22.
I went to eleven to get the Face of the Franchise onto the list. And because it goes to eleven.
That's a fair point. At the same time, I wonder whether the position adjustment for catchers is large enough. Tango's research suggests that the "catcher hitting penalty" is about 10 runs, which also happens to be the position adjustment (IIRC). That would imply that a replacement level catcher hits about as well as a replacement CF (if he weren't catching). Maybe, but it also seems plausible to me that replacement catchers are a bit worse than that.
IOW, if you forced a minimum salary backup catcher to catch 140 games, how bad would his hitting be? It might be pretty bad...
No. He is easily top 10. I don't care how atrocious his defense was, he was (and maybe still is) one of the great hitters ever relative to his position and has had a brilliant career.
Neyer wrote a column last year where he put Jeter at No.3 all time, behind Wagner and Ripken. I don't know if I'd go that high, I'd probably put him also behind A-Rod, just because his peak was SO amazing, and Vaughn.
Yount played almost half his games at other positions and Banks also played more time at other spots, so I don't see how you can rank them higher.
Not sure why these threads about Jeter always turn into the Charlie Steiner ESPN commercial about Holyfield.
Stuart Scott: Charley Steiner thinks you're maybe the 50th best heavyweight.
Holyfield: In the world?
Scott: In Georgia.
Bench: 72 WAR, 2 MVP, ROY, 10 GG
Morgan, as a Red: 56 WAR in under 5000 PA, 2 MVP, 4 GG
Frank Robinson, as a Red: 60 WAR in 6400 PA, MVP, ROY, GG
Larkin: 9050 PA, 67 WAR MVP, 3 GG
Jeter: 11,800 PA, 70 WAR, 0 MVP,ROY, 5 GG
Jeter is good, but much like the Yankees he'd only be the 6th best Red ever.
It looks like those 6 guys are bunched together really closely.
If Jeter had a 5 WAR season next year, he'd be about as good as Rose in as many PA (and that would include 800 PA at the end of Rose's career where he accumulated 0 WAR).
Bench accumulated a similar WAR as Jeter, but in 3000 fewer PA.
Morgan accumulated 14 fewer WAR, but in 6800 fewer PA.
Robinson accumulated 10 fewer WAR, but in about half the PA.
Larkin accumulated a similar WAR, but in 2800 fewer PA.
"Had Jeter done this for any other team he’d be the best player in franchise history."
becomes...
Had Jeter done this for just about any other team he’d be the best player in franchise history.
"Jeter never even won an MVP, nor did he even finish second in the voting."
becomes...
...Jeter never even won an MVP.
And yes, I'm a severe dick.
Gee, thanks.
Jeter, 1999: 7.8
Petrocelli, 1969: 9.5
Derek Jeter...at his very best, not even as good as Rico Petrocelli!
Best 5 seasons as Reds
Rose 8.2, 7.0, 6.7, 6.1, 5.9
Bench 8.5, 7.7., 7.1, 6.4, 6.0
Morgan 10.8, 9.5, 9.3, 9.1, 8.4,
F Robby 8.4, 7.5, 7.3, 6.6, 6.2
Larkin 6.9, 6.8, 5.9, 5.7, 5.5
Jeter 7.8, 7.3, 6.4, 5.4, 4.9
Jeter v Larkin is a close call, and I'd go with Jeter, though I loved Larkin, but the other ones are pretty well ahead of him.
Jeter is a fine, fine player, but I don't think he'd be the best all-time player for any of the original franchises.
The only real arguments I'd see would be
White Sox--Probably 2nd behind the Big Hurt. though the Jeter/Appling gap is narrower than I would have thought
As--I'd slot him 4th behind Rickey, Plank, and Grove, I think.
Cubs--Cap Anson obviously if you count 19th century. If not Santo and Sandberg and Banks vs Jeter is interesting. Not sure exactly where he'd slot in that group.
Dodgers--this is the close one. Depending on peak v career balance, you can make a case he'd be the greatest Dodger of all time. Funny that such a great franchise has relatively weak career leaders.
The Reds and Yankees obviously have
Even at the career level it's close. He's about even with Reese, Snider and Drysdale. Give Reese any war credit and he's well ahead of Jeter.
And for White Sox, Appling is a clear choice over Jeter. Actually, Eddie Collins is close to Jeter just counting his Chicago performance.
And another case where a writer's silly claim "forces" us to appear as though we are "slamming" Jeter. There is of course no shame in not having a career that would rank as the best for a bunch of teams that have been playing for over 100 years. Everybody here knows that Jeter is an obvious HoFer and HoMer.
Rickey's second stint with Oakland was 100 games more than he played with any other team except the Yankees. Rickey's third stint with Oakland was more games than he played for anyone other than The Yanks or Padres. Definitely not what immediately springs to mind when you think of a guy who played two-thirds of his career with one team.
Not many can match Rico. Rico's 1969 season was among the best ever among players not in the HOF, excluding players on the ballot or not eligible yet. Rico 1969 or Al Rosen 1953.
Or Wilson Alvarez or Pat Seerey, for that matter. Why not compare apples to orange seeds while we're at it?
Awwww, we know that Mike Burke once made fun of your lithp and you've never forgiven him or his team for it. You don't have to rationalize it, it's a perfectly understandable reason.
And Pee Wee Reese? Please.
(Torre was playing 3B, Simmons was catching. That's the only time Gibson hit Fairly. Also, Fairly had homered off him that day, which contradicts Gibson's recollection.)
I know, right? Seems implausible. But based on the numbers, you can make the case. Once you correct for the errors in TZ, as Michael Humphreys does here, Reese and Jeter both have 60 career WAR. But Jeter picked up about 2 WAR this year, and will presumably add a few more before he's done, so he will have more career WAR. And of course there is the advantage in key counting stats. Admittedly, Jeter has about 25% more PA (and counting). But if you're willing to ignore the war issue, I think you can make a case that Jeter would be considered a greater Dodger than Reese.
best WAR seasons (hitters) among non-HOFers. (Lonnie Smith--really???)
Nah, he never really had one.
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