If he's not at the top of your ballot, why not?

If he's not at the top of your ballot, why not?

Probably because you believe the WoWy numbers on his D. Or the gift baskets.

If he's not at the top of your ballot, why not?

Um... Harold Baines had more sacrifice flies?

Because he's near the bottom of my HoM-worthy-SS list and yes, his defense is a big driver of that. I consider Jeter-Campy to be my in-out line at SS with Jeter in and Campy out though both are borderline and I wouldn't be upset if both got in or both were left out. I have 28 returners from 2019 plus anyone from 2020 (haven't started to look at who's newly eligible yet besides Jeter) so just me thinking you are on the in side of my line doesn't mean you get a top 15 ballot slot. I have argued for expanded ballots to help get a better handle on a consensus, but I seem to be the only one in favor of that so I won't beat that drum anymore.
I have Fletcher, Tinker and Bancroft ahead of him at SS (Bancroft only by a little) plus Schang & Munson, Helton & Taylor, Bell & Leach, Veach & Jones & Lofton, and several pitchers. That's just the guys I definitely have ahead of Jeter.
That said, this is all based on my 2019 ballot research. (I did rank several active and not yet eligible players including Jeter just for fun last year) I'm currently working on some tweaks to my methodology for 2020, but I doubt they include any major defensive adjustments at this time. I'm still planning to stick with 70% DRA and 30% DRS/TZ. I feel pretty comfortable with that breakdown.

This oughta be good.

I get that the defense was bad. It was not so bad that a SS with 3000 hits (and a whole lot more) is not Hall of Merit worthy. I will be shocked if he's not at the top of my ballot.

He has 72 WAR, even with the bad defense. 337 on the Hall of Fame Monitor (where 100 is in or out, 70-130 is grey). He's 12th in JAWS at SS, which puts him in the Barry Larkin/Alan Trammell class at SS. Which I think is low end, as there is some argument that his defensive shortcomings are a bit overstated by the metrics (they can't possibly be understated).

Ripken is the only most of career SS with more plate appearances, and that's just barely and he played several years at 3B at the end of his career. Jeter still puts up a 115 OPS+ - which is similar to Barry Larkin (116) - who had 3600 fewer career plate appearances. Jeter's 1997-2009 is just as much PT as Larkin's entire career and Jeter has a 122 OPS+ over those years. It's not like Larkin is a borderline HoMer. Jeter has 64.6 WAR over those years, 34.8 WAA. Larkin's career is 42.5 and 70.4. And that's not giving Jeter any credit for his Rookie of the Year campaign in 1996, or his 2010-12 where he was still a decent player, and an excellent hitter for a SS, even if the defense dragged him to a half a win a year below average (but still well above replacement) for those years. I mean hell he had 216 hits (leading the league) and hit .316 in 2012, even if the D is bad, doing that as a SS is still worth something.

To say Jeter is a borderline HoMer requires a lot of evidence to be presented, IMO. There is way more than enough offense to override his defensive shortcomings. If there wasn't the Yankees wouldn't have paid him $265 million dollars.

haven't started to look at who's newly eligible yet besides Jeter

Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi, and a bunch of guys who are unlikely to ever appear on a Hall-of-Merit ballot, unless my quick skim of BB-Ref's 2020 Ballot page missed somebody.

Jeter had 3465 hits - 6th all time, although he's only 10th in plate appearances - plus another 200 hits (!!) in the postseason. He's gonna have to have one helluva knock against his defense to see him placed anywhere but #1.

However:

There is way more than enough offense to override his defensive shortcomings. If there wasn't the Yankees wouldn't have paid him $265 million dollars.

Appeal to authority fallacy. Over the past two years Pujols made $51 million to eat 1134 plate appearances with an 85 OPS+. The $51 million is obviously no proof of his value. (Sorry Joe, you know I love you.)

Not saying he wasn't great. I believe he comes out to #28 on my SS list and I did say I have him as an in. My methodology on Baseball Gauge has him around (I don't have my spreadsheets in front of me) 65.3 WAR, 30.2 WAA, 15.5 WAG. Note: WAA & WAG have negative seasons zeroed. These are all good numbers but he doesn't score as a world beater in my peak rating or my career rating. As a comparison, Larkin is 77.0/51.1/36.6. Trammell is 69.7/43.0/29.4 without PT adjustments for 1981 & 1994 (again, don't have my spreadsheets in front of me). These are not minor differences. Campy is 56.0/27.6/15.9 without small PT adjustments for 1972. If I decide to give 70s SSs a little bonus for degree of difficulty, Campy and Jeter will probably be pretty close comps by my system, and under this scenario I'd lean towards both being in.

He has 72 WAR, even with the bad defense. 337 on the Hall of Fame Monitor (where 100 is in or out, 70-130 is grey). He's 12th in JAWS at SS, which puts him in the Barry Larkin/Alan Trammell class at SS. Which I think is low end, as there is some argument that his defensive shortcomings are a bit overstated by the metrics (they can't possibly be understated).

Ripken is the only most of career SS with more plate appearances, and that's just barely and he played several years at 3B at the end of his career. Jeter still puts up a 115 OPS+ - which is similar to Barry Larkin (116) - who had 3600 fewer career plate appearances. Jeter's 1997-2009 is just as much PT as Larkin's entire career and Jeter has a 122 OPS+ over those years. It's not like Larkin is a borderline HoMer. Jeter has 64.6 WAR over those years, 34.8 WAA. Larkin's career is 42.5 and 70.4. And that's not giving Jeter any credit for his Rookie of the Year campaign in 1996, or his 2010-12 where he was still a decent player, and an excellent hitter for a SS, even if the defense dragged him to a half a win a year below average (but still well above replacement) for those years. I mean hell he had 216 hits (leading the league) and hit .316 in 2012, even if the D is bad, doing that as a SS is still worth something.

To say Jeter is a borderline HoMer requires a lot of evidence to be presented, IMO. There is way more than enough offense to override his defensive shortcomings. If there wasn't the Yankees wouldn't have paid him $265 million dollars.

Carl's point is trying to incorporate tougher measures of defense than TZ/DRS by using DRA, which as Jeter at a career 47 win total:
https://www.thebaseballgauge.com/player.php?playerID=jeterde01

Baseball Gauge's assessment jives with the WOWY studies by Tom Tango in the past.
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/best_worst_wowy_since_1993_through_age_34/
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/12399/manufactured-runs-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-derek-jeter/

Kiko's Win-Loss data go beyond Baseball-Reference and see a narrower defensive spectrum, and find Jeter as a top third HOMer.

I'm a believer in Kiko's analysis, so I'll find a ballot spot for Jeter, but not sure how high.

A tie-breaker or boost is in order for some fine post-season performances.

"A tie-breaker or boost is in order for some fine post-season performances."
I do agree with this and am working to revamp my postseason credit system. The numbers I've listed above do no include postseason so he'll probably move up the list a little. That said, his postseason numbers aren't that different from his regular season.

He will probably be toward the bottom of my ballot.

He has 72 bWAR, but Rfield is one of the friendliest metrics with regard to his defense (-243). Personally, I weigh Rfield and DRA (-349.8) equally, so that lowers his WAR in my system. I believe others, like. Carl Goetz and Dr. Chaleeko weigh DRA at 70%, so he might be even lower in their systems.

Now in my system, he does benefit from a median positional adjustment I have similar to DanR’s replacement level adjustment, and also the AL during his career was a below average standard deviation era for hitters, so that gives him another boost in my system.

One other lowering effect, however, is that my system is peak and peak-rate heavy, so the fact that he batted lead-off or second most of his career in a high-scoring era on what was almost always one of the top 2 scoring teams in his league, does hurt him in my system.

That said, although he will be toward the bottom of my ballot, he is still a clear HoMer in my book. If the last player in my PHoM has a PEACE+ of 100, Jeter’s would be about 110-112 (at work and don’t remember the exact number off the top of my head.

And surprisingly, Giambi would be close to my ballot and will make my PHoM, maybe even next year. ( He had a really great peak).

Appeal to authority fallacy. Over the past two years Pujols made $51 million to eat 1134 plate appearances with an 85 OPS+.

Fair enough, but this doesn't exactly apply to Jeter either. His salary actually went down over his final years (he maxed out in 2010).

Compare him to Omar Vizquel, who made $63M with a max of $6M in one season, for example.

The main point was that if the defense was that bad, and *not offset by his offense* the Yankees had several opportunities to let him go. They didn't.

Another appeal to authority, but I'm pretty sure Mike Emeigh looked at Jeter's defense extensively and thought there were some illusions, or things that weren't as expected, all over the Yankee defense of this era.

Not saying that the D wasn't bad. But I think the degree of badness is somewhat exaggerated by the methods and how they use the imperfect data. I know the Brewers had issues too at one point because they positioned their fielders much differently than the normal. I forget the specifics of these which is cop out, but maybe someone else remembers, it's been awhile.

The numbers I've listed above do no include postseason so he'll probably move up the list a little. That said, his postseason numbers aren't that different from his regular season.

Yeah, a little more power, a little less OBP. But also against much better pitching and generally in cold weather. So I'll probably give him a bump here too.

I mean I have some big issues with UZR and all of these metrics overall. Probably less issue with DRS than any of the others, but the error bars seem pretty big. Look at Manny Machado's SS numbers with the Orioles and Dodgers, for example. He was all time horrible with the Orioles, a little above average for the Dodgers.

I think we are putting a lot of faith in very unproven/imprecise metrics here. There is still a lot we don't know, especially in terms of team level things that could distort the metrics.

I am not saying we just throw them out, Jeter wasn't a good SS. But how not good is very open to interpretation. I really wish we had access to the metrics teams have right now, which I think are exponentially better than what is available to the public. And I wish someone could use those to back track to something that works from the regular stats adjusted for context for the rest of history.

"There is still a lot we don't know, especially in terms of team level things that could distort the metrics."
Are you referring to positioning here? Cause I feel like that gets to be a slippery slope really quickly. A good hitting coach can be all the difference for a batter turning things around, but we still give credit/blame for offense to the hitter whether he had the advantage of good coaching or not. By accounts from the Redsox, JD Martinez helped Mookie Betts become a better hitter this year, but we don't give Martinez credit for Betts offense. If the Yankees were positioning players poorly, I have a hard time juicing up Jeter's numbers for that.
That said, there is certainly less precision to defense metrics than offense and that needs to be considered when evaluating players. But keep in mind, for Jeter, the range is around -24 wins to -34 wins below an average SS in the field. That's pretty bad regardless.

Look at Manny Machado's SS numbers with the Orioles and Dodgers, for example. He was all time horrible with the Orioles, a little above average for the Dodgers.

When a guy (Machado) can't run out grounders in the World Series, I suppose it's not unfair to question whether he was giving it his full effort on defense for a team having a really terrible season.
It might be a good point, but you can't use the poster child for lack of effort to make this argument.

Look at Manny Machado's SS numbers with the Orioles and Dodgers, for example. He was all time horrible with the Orioles, a little above average for the Dodgers.

Forgive me for butting in here, but this sort of argument always baffled me when it comes to defensive statistics. We would never say that a player's offensive or pitching numbers being much better in half a season with one team compared to half with another meant that the statistics are untrustworthy or failing to accurately measure what happened. I know that defensive metrics between one another, sometimes wildly, and that measuring defense is much less precise than offense and pitching, and I have no problem with skepticism of the numbers. My one issue is specifically with stat fluctuations like that being used to doubt the numbers. It feels like people expect defensive metrics to measure skill, and thus be relatively consistent or static, rather than defensive production/value.

Would it reveal my anti-Jeter/anti-Yankee bias if I chose this space to say that I wish that it would be discovered that he was the roidin'est shortstop in the land?






[He'll be getting my vote, personal opinions aside.]

We would never say that a player's offensive or pitching numbers being much better in half a season with one team compared to half with another meant that the statistics are untrustworthy or failing to accurately measure what happened.

Strongly agree! Excellent point

HGM - what I am saying is that the player was the same and the environment was what changed. And this biggest issue we have with defensive statistics is adjusting for the environment. It's not the same as hitting. It's not something I easily dismiss as random fluctuation, precisely because these are the problems with publicly available fielding measures. They are heavily scorer dependent, and the scorers are very inconsistent.

Again, I'm not saying we dismiss them out of hand. But on the margins, yes, I'm going be a bit skeptical when different systems come out very different. Or when there are things at the team level come into play. I mean the Yankees were one of the great teams of all time, but a lot of their stars at key positions are coming out as awful fielders. Jeter, WIlliams, Posada. Just saying we need to dig a little deeper possibly. There could easily be team level illusions both good and bad in the extreme fielding numbers.

If the Yankees were positioning players poorly, I have a hard time juicing up Jeter's numbers for that.

That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the measurements could be thrown off because of things at the team level. Like the 3B taking discretionary plays away, things like that. Or the scorer inaccurately marking the position of where the ball was hit. Or how hard it was hit. Or the pitching staff giving more or less of different types of plays, beyond what is just the normal LHP/RHP; GB/FB split. Etc.

There are plenty of reasons why Jeter was not a good SS. His arm is the main reason, it was terrible for a SS and that's why he played 3-4 steps closer than anyone else. And why he was great on plays on the infield grass, and terrible on balls up the middle or in the hole. It's also why he couldn't play 3B and why they had to put ARod there.

But I do question the degree to which some metrics say he was bad. Especially when Yankee 3B tended to have great numbers, especially Brosius. And that they were still able to get away with playing him there regularly as a 40-year old. I asked Mike to chime in, because it's been years since I read what he wrote about this, but it definitely made an impression on me.

@JoeD:

It's also why he couldn't play 3B and why they had to put ARod there.

...Is that true? School me please. I always thought it was a matter of massaging the Captain's ego. Jeter never did play an inning at any fielding position other than shortstop.

While I generally have caution towards the extreme defensive numbers, the fact that pretty much every system agree that Jeter was a historically bad shortstop leads me to regress his numbers less than I would typically be inclined to do. I am open to the idea that there are contextual issues with the measurement of the 90s/00s Yankees defense - it looks awfully bad for a very good team - but I'm not sure what possible reason there could be for the primary center fielder, shortstop, and catcher all being terrible.

Comparing Jeter to Jeff Kent - they had very different offensive profiles, but by wRC+, they rate very similarly offensively (Jeter - 119, Kent - 123). Jeter was more of a threat on the basepaths, and had 3000 more PAs, which is a big deal. I think Kent was probably a smidgen better both hitting and a decent bit better in the field, but I don't think that quite makes up the difference. With Kent as a baseline, I can expect Jeter to appear on the top half of my ballot, probably in the 3-5 range.

I have Kent up higher than most, and he indeed will be a head-to-head I look at.

It's kind of a shame the ballot is so weak in the Jeter year. I suspect he'll make my top 3 and maybe No 1, which is boring but what are you gonna do.

Would it reveal my anti-Jeter/anti-Yankee bias if I chose this space to say that I wish that it would be discovered that he was the roidin'est shortstop in the land?

That's what more than one Jeter hater was saying in some of those old steroids threads. Mostly these were the same people who were defending the actual steroids users.

I am open to the idea that there are contextual issues with the measurement of the 90s/00s Yankees defense - it looks awfully bad for a very good team - but I'm not sure what possible reason there could be for the primary center fielder, shortstop, and catcher all being terrible.

This gets at the issue raised in the HOF thread: couldn't teams win by having hitters good enough to overcome even really bad defense?

Given that I tend to value longevity over peak and my returning top 5 are McCormick, Tiant, Bell, Andruw, and Kent, I don’t see how Jeter’s not going to top my ballot next year. He has loads of BBRef WAR at a premium position and hit well.

Put him up against stiff competition like Pujols or Bonds or Clemens or Maddux and you’ve got a different situation.

From the 2006 Fielding Bible
Bill James on Jeter's fielding

This is still good, and it shows where defensive evaluation was at the time. We've come a ways since then.

"That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that the measurements could be thrown off because of things at the team level. Like the 3B taking discretionary plays away, things like that. Or the scorer inaccurately marking the position of where the ball was hit. Or how hard it was hit. Or the pitching staff giving more or less of different types of plays, beyond what is just the normal LHP/RHP; GB/FB split. Etc."

Even Rfield, which is I believe the most generous system has him positive (only only slightly) exactly twice. Brosius was a good fielder with the A's; Ventura was as well with WS & Mets; and A-Rod was a good fielding SS prior to joining the Yankees. I think its reasonable to assume he actually had a quality defensive 3B next to him for the vast majority of his career and that wasn't just an illusion created by 3B taking more discretionary plays. Also, typically ground balls are not discretionary plays and, if memory serves, infielders are largely judged on ground balls in DRA as a result.
I agree on the batted ball metrics. Those scoring issues absolutely come into play. I don't like UZR at all and only moderately like DRS. That's why I incorporate DRA for 70%.
I have a hard time buying that Jeter was getting less grounds balls than the normal L/R split or GB/FB split for 20 years, but if there's some evidence of that, I'd be happy to look at it. I also remember reading an article many years ago (probably 03-05ish) that studied Jeter vs the other players who got in at SS for the Yankees during Jeter's career (to that point) and they collectively had better range factors than Jeter. While there may be some sample size issues there, as a collection, they presumably had similar ground ball frequencies to Jeter since they had the same pitchers.
While I agree there is a wider error bar with defensive measures than their offensive counterparts, I have no doubt that Jeter was a poor defensive SS. Was he the worst defensive regular SS of his era? Or of all time? That's the range in my mind. Even if I switched to full on Rfield for Jeter's defense (I believe that's the most generous measure for him), he moves up a few slots and becomes a no brainer Hall of Merit SS (instead of borderline in right now), but he wouldn't move into my Top 20 SS. That wouldn't move him to the top half of my ballot, though he'd definitely be on it at that point.

Fewer.

Kiko's stats show Jeter at ~10 losses on defense, I translate that to a WAR level of ~-17.5 wins, a fair deal more favorable to the ~-24 wins with TZ/DRS B-R WAR.

https://baseball.tomthress.com/StatTables/PlayerStats.php?id=jeted001

Kiko's stats show Jeter at ~10 losses on defense, I translate that to a WAR level of ~-17.5 wins, a fair deal more favorable to the ~24 wins with TZ/DRS B-R WAR.

Yeah, I'm probably going to post something longer here eventually - short version: I'm 99.9% sure that I'll be Jeter's "best friend" (although I suspect I won't be the only guy to have him #1 on his ballot). But just to be clear: my system agrees with every other system that Derek Jeter was a very bad defensive shortstop - worst in the majors several seasons in his career, by far the most negative fielding wins of any shortstop - probably more negative fielding wins relative to position than anybody at any position, although I'm not 100% sure of that. The spread of fielding numbers is just quite a bit narrower in my system.

I have a hard time buying that Jeter was getting less grounds balls than the normal L/R split or GB/FB split for 20 years, but if there's some evidence of that, I'd be happy to look at it.

I think Jeter's Ps had a higher K rate than most teams - though that likely would only account for a fraction of the issue.

The fact that Jeter's teams kept winning and winning over the years is probably not worth completely ignoring - unless we think they would have won far MORE games with a better-balanced SS. I just question whether, even with a bad-fielding SS like here, to what extent that really costs your team wins. and if it doesn't cost much, then ......

reminds me of my comments on Rivera. his greater regular-season dominance didn't translate into a superior SV conversion rate to Hoffman, for example. if baseball was graded on how many runners you allow, different story. but it isn't, in real life.

DID YOU WIN?
YES
NO

The fact that Jeter's teams kept winning and winning over the years is probably not worth completely ignoring - unless we think they would have won far MORE games with a better-balanced SS. I just question whether, even with a bad-fielding SS like here, to what extent that really costs your team wins. and if it doesn't cost much, then ......

Well, if we trust then numbers, then on a per-season rate his defense was costing his team one to two wins per season. Is the difference between 97 wins and 98/99 wins going to be that big of a deal for a team most years?

And that is as the worst defensive shortstop of all time for anyone with a decently long career at SS. Suffice to say, the offensive and defensive contributions of the other 24 members of the team far outweigh the effect a relatively poor SS can have on a team, and so pointing to the Yankees continuously winning isn't really evidence of his ability, in either direction. This isn't basketball.

If he's better than the numbers indicate, the evidence lies elsewhere.

if baseball was graded on how many runners you allow, different story. but it isn't, in real life.

DID YOU WIN?
YES
NO

Playing at SS for at least part of the game in the last 111 seasons only in games that "matter" in real life min 4000 PA and .800 OPS:

.995 Joe Cronin: 345/435/560, 951 RBI/1 per 1.08 Games, 866 R/1 per 1.19 Games
.943 Barry Larkin: 336/417/526, 682 RBI/1.6, 951 R/1.15
.924 Miguel Tejada: 324/377/548, 881 RBI/1.15, 810 R/1.25
.908 Luke Appling: 356/444/464, 690 RBI/1.51, 816 R/1.28
.898 Derek Jeter: 339/406/491, 968 RBI/1.64, 1441 R/1.1

.898 Cal Ripken Jr: 304/379/519, 892 RBI/1.29, 902 R/1.27
.868 Alan Trammell: 321/388/479, 681 RBI/1.65, 836 R/1.34
.849 Edgar Renteria: 325/384/465, 684 RBI/1.65, 836 R/1.35
.848 Jimmy Rollins: 300/362/486, 667 RBI/1.79, 1022 R/1.17
.834 Rafael Furcal: 313/378/456, 416 RBI/2.15, 787 R/1.14

.819 Pee Wee Reese: 296/395/424, 660 RBI/1.87, 974 R/1.27
.813 Dave Bancroft: 316/394/419, 377 RBI/2.57, 756 R/1.28
.812 Orlando Cabrera: 310/358/455, 579 RBI/1.62, 643 R/1.46
.809 Dick Groat: 334/377/432, 499 RBI/1.88, 591 R/1.59

If you don't want to grade relievers on the runners they allow it doesn't really make sense to grade position players on becoming a runner when their team doesn't win and possibly don't even consider when they become a runner but neither drive in a run or eventually score.

And that is as the worst defensive shortstop of all time for anyone with a decently long career at SS. Suffice to say, the offensive and defensive contributions of the other 24 members of the team far outweigh the effect a relatively poor SS can have on a team, and so pointing to the Yankees continuously winning isn't really evidence of his ability, in either direction. This isn't basketball.

It's not even a "relatively poor SS," it's a relatively poor fielding SS, but still a very good overall SS.

Seriously, even the worst fielding estimation of Jeter still leave him as comfortably HoVG / borderline HoF type player. The notion that the Yankees (who in most of those years lapped the rest of MLB in payroll) could not have kept winning with "only" a HoVG type shortstop, is batshit insane.

I read that James article when it came out, but I'd forgotten quite how scathing it was...

John [Dewan]’s henchmen at Baseball Info Solutions had watched video from every major league game... One of their conclusions was that Derek Jeter was probably the least effective defensive player in the major leagues, at any position... All three [analytic] systems agree that Jeter has extremely limited range in terms of getting to groundballs... It makes intuitive sense that Derek Jeter could be the worst defensive shortstop of all time. Unusual weaknesses in sports can only survive in the presence of unusual strengths... The worst defensive shortstop in baseball history would have to be someone like Jeter who is unusually good at other aspects of the game... He is not a Gold Glove quality shortstop. He isn’t an average defensive shortstop. Giving him every possible break on the unknowns, he is still going to emerge as a below average defensive shortstop.

Ouch.

Still can't imagine a middle infielder with 3400 hits being anywhere but #1 on my ballot though.

Jeter's poor defense knocks him outside of my all-time top 100, but he's near the Hall of Merit median player value. He'll be #1 on my 2020 ballot.

I wonder about the alternative universe where the Yankees acquire A-Rod to play shortstop and Jeter willingly transitions to CF, replacing the aging (and, by that time, also defensively challenged) Bernie Williams. His career would look a lot like Robin Yount's; would it have been more or less valuable to the Yankees?

I wonder about the alternative universe where the Yankees acquire A-Rod to play shortstop and Jeter willingly transitions to CF, replacing the aging (and, by that time, also defensively challenged) Bernie Williams. His career would look a lot like Robin Yount's; would it have been more or less valuable to the Yankees?

Much more valuable I think.

Per DRS Jeter and Williams were -33 in 2004, and -53 in 2005.

ARod was coming off a +8 season at SS, and was +14 at 3B in 2004. Even if he was just average at SS, it's hard to believe Jeter would be -35 in CF.

another Prince is born!
#CinderellaStory

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‏Verified account @PlayersTribune
7m7 minutes ago

Congratulations Derek and Hannah on the birth of your second baby girl, Story Grey Jeter.

but Rfield is one of the friendliest metrics with regard to his defense (-243).

Rfield is a combination of DRS (from Baseball Info Solutions) and TZ (my metric). It's TZ up to 2002, then DRS after that. Simply because DRS wasn't published until then. DRS is harsher than TZ on his defense (as is the case for most bad fielders), but UZR (used on Fangraphs) is kinder to Derek than either.

He's -152 runs from 2003-2014 by DRS, and only -66 for the same period by UZR.

To say Jeter is a borderline HoMer requires a lot of evidence to be presented, IMO. There is way more than enough offense to override his defensive shortcomings.

The issue of Jeter's defense has been extensively debated (to say the least), with many of the most intelligent pieces of commentary that I've seen suggesting that the defensive metrics actually overrate Jeter's defensive value, perhaps to a significant degree. There was a very lengthy discussion of this on Tango's Book blog years ago that I can't find. However, the WOWY method was published in THE BOOK and a preview of the method overview is available:

https://books.google.com/books?id=kFNggNu0h3oC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f;=false

TZ in particular regresses all fielders closer to the mean than other methods like UZR or especially WOWY, and overrates bad defenders and underrates good ones systematically. UZR may do this also but to a lesser degree. For average fielders it won't make a difference, but Jeter is a case where it makes an enormous difference. Jeter, BTW, was 7 standard deviations below the mean SS according to WoWY, and if you believe the methodology (which is pretty impressive) Jeter is about a 50 WAR player for his career. There is definintely evidence out there that Jeter's solid offense and exceptional durability still did not add up to a HOM career due to the defense. At any rate, an excellent discussion of the bias created by the TZ methodology is in the following link, where Rally admits these biases and Guy makes fantastic point after fantastic point on the methods (starting with #13):

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/best_worst_wowy_since_1993_through_age_34/

There's some small discussion of why WOWY is probably the most accurate representation of Jeter's actual defense - TZ has the mentioned biases, and UZR probably has an error bias - here (starting at #36, Guy again, and in particular check #39, amazingly succinct):

http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/comments/how-jeter-has-average-defensive-value

Other threads from the blog reference methods such as SAFE and others which attempt to handle defense more rigorously or accurately. I can't speak to them as I haven't read up on them. But several of them also portray Jeter as notably worse than the public metrics. In short, there is not a lack of evidence.

If he's not at the top of your ballot, why not?

Conduct detrimental to the best interests of baseball as front man for the current Marlins regime.

I'd rather have Tommy Leach

TZ in particular regresses all fielders closer to the mean than other methods like UZR or especially WOWY, and overrates bad defenders and underrates good ones systematically.

Maybe at one time this was true, but looking at the numbers on Fangraphs now UZR regresses quite a bit more than TZ. I haven't downloaded the whole dataset and compared the standard deviations, so if you care to do that please correct me if I'm wrong. I just don't see a lot of extreme values on the Fangraphs leader board for UZR. For Jeter, UZR currently shows him at only -66. That is not his whole career, but does cover 2002-2014. TZ is much more negative for the same years, and DRS (used for BBREF WAR) has him at -152 for 2003 to 2014.

On the scale of most regressed to most extreme values, I think the scale is:

1. Inside Edge (on Fangraphs, they don't show a runs value but somebody could easily work one out for that)
2. UZR
3. Total Zone
4. Zone rating (Chris Dial's run conversions, actually I'm not sure, you could swap 3rd and 4th place)
5. DRS (John Dewan's company)
6. Defensive Regression Analysis (Humphries)
7. WOWY

I don't have any sense of where Prospectus numbers fall into that, I haven't looked at their ratings in a while and I'm probably a few revisions behind anyway. For outfielders there is the runs saved stuff based on Statcast and available on Baseball Savant. For range of values, this probably fits in close to UZR, a smaller range of values than most other methods. That stuff is really good, in my opinion the gold standard for publicly available defense stats. It's not regression, it's precision. I don't think they have published anything similar for infielders though.

Thanks Rally, link to analysis of Jeter defense:

http://www.baseballprojection.com/special/jeter.htm

since this thread title should attract more eyeballs, this might be better here - WHO YA GOT?

368. Howie Menckel Posted: December 20, 2019 at 08:24 PM (#5910227)
here's the "showdown" I wish we had instead of Jeter walking in on a weak ballot

Jeter OPS+, high to low, as every-day player:

153 132 128 127 125 125 125 125* 124 121 114 114 111 103 102 101 100 (090 076)

vs another HOFer
155 138 138 138** 130 136 120 113 (97 92 90 90** 89 85)

* - (Jeter also had a full season's worth of postseason PA, and hit even better. so let's give him another 125)
** - not a BA title qualifier

second line is Trammell, who routinely had 100+ fewer PA in seasons. Jeter holds up well, then, in batting peak, in long prime, and even in extra years as an above-average hitter for a SS.

throw in defense, though, and - well, Trammell had to wait too long to get into HOF and Jeter is flirting with unanimous.

wonder what this matchup vote would be

Trammell and Larkin are both good comps for Jeter. All were similar hitters, very good batting averages, could take a walk but no threat to lead the league, had medium range power, and all were excellent baserunners.

Trammell and Larkin were much better defensively but Jeter was much more durable. It comes down to a choice of :

1) good hitter, good fielder for 125 games
or
2) good hitter, bad fielder for 150 games

By WAR the difference between them is no more than a rounding error.

Making that an actual link:

http://www.baseballprojection.com/special/jeter.htm

Hello!

I'm back for the 2020 election after missing the last five elections or so. I've been catching up on the threads doing a thorough update of my assessments over the last six weeks or so, and I'd like to post a preliminary ballot. I'm not getting a comment box on either the 2020 ballot discussion thread or the 2020 ballot thread, unfortunately, so I'm checking in here to say hello and to ask if there's a step that I am missing that would enable me to get a comment box for use on those other threads.

It's good to be back and to see a mix of familiar and unfamiliar names keeping the HoM project going!

Welcome back!

I've had issues like what your describing. I've found it generally happens on pages I have opened before logging in, but that's about the only consistent thing. One thing that has worked for me is to go to previous pages on that thread - sometimes those will have the comment box.

Other than that, logging off and coming back later works sometimes too.