See, Jeter is slower than all the other players in the league and still gets gold gloves... that just shows how superior he really is!

The first-baseman will move to cover first before Jeter moves towards the ball, which results in a lot of missed plays.”

Which is why the first baseman is in the hospital with broken bones and Jeter is not. Slow and steady wins the race.

The Angels recently played the Yankees, so I some opportunities to sample Jeter's defense, particularly when they show the high replay angle from behind home plate, where you can see the SS, 2B, and CF along with the batter in the shot.

Replays from this angle really demonstrate how slow he is off of contact. There were groundballs up the middle where Cano had about a step-and-a-half toward the ball before Jeter moved at all. The 1B wasn't in the shots I saw, so I can't comment on what the guy in the pull-quote in the intro is saying, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I mean, in the scope of life, it's not a big deal, but the failure of even the television analysts to comment on this is somewhat annoying. And it's not so much about Jeter as it is about announcers and analysts not really paying attention to things, even in replays.

“He’s making unbelievable plays and gets a great read off the ball,” Jenkins says. “We get to watch games shot from behind home plate so that you can see the fielders react. So you can compare Reyes to a guy like Derek Jeter, who is often the last person in the infield to react to a ball even when it’s hit in his direction. The first-baseman will move to cover first before Jeter moves towards the ball, which results in a lot of missed plays.”

I just read The Numbers Game by Alan Schwarz (checked it out of the library). Towards the end of the book, they talk about multiple-angle video imaging combined with technology that measures velocity of hits etc. as one way defense will be evaluated (The book is about 3-4 years old). Interesting. Assuming we see this as reliable information, combined with the other info on Jeter at SS, it seems to me that this is more evidence he should be moved to the OF. I think he'd be a pretty good OF.

I just read The Numbers Game by Alan Schwarz (checked it out of the library). Towards the end of the book, they talk about multiple-angle video imaging combined with technology that measures velocity of hits etc. as one way defense will be evaluated (The book is about 3-4 years old). Interesting. Assuming we see this as reliable information, combined with the other info on Jeter at SS, it seems to me that this is more evidence he should be moved to the OF. I think he'd be a pretty good OF.

I don't know. If Jeter is actually that much slower reacting to the ball off the bat, I can't see many positions where he would be genuinely good.

"If Jeter is actually that much slower reacting to the ball off the bat, I can't see many positions where he would be genuinely good."

Seeing as how he had the foot speed to play a league average SS for about half of his career (97-99, 04-06), I think he'd handle the OF just fine.

Jose Valentin went 1-3 with 2 walks and a homer today. He should be back soon. He's only going to make the Met defense better if he's healthy.

I'm not sure why the 1B should be slow to react. I used to play 1B and I'm pretty sure I was occasionally moving while the guy was still swinging. It's not that hard to determine (1) it's a grounder and (2) it's not coming my way so (3) time to move to the bag. The 1B is breaking towards first on, what, half or 2/3 of the BIP? And even when it's not a grounder, the 1B doesn't often have much else to do but move towards the bag.

What's embarassing is when you break to the bag out of habit on a ball to your right you could have gotten to. :-)

Posada is getting up there in years. Jeter would make a great catcher; his range won't really matter than unless teams start bunting against the Yankees.