Third Best of All Time, Without Additives

In a career that has vacillated between unexamined hero worship and unwarranted criticism, it's fitting that Derek Jeter faces a duality of opinion on the precipice of a major career milestone. On the one hand, his supporters are primed to celebrate his 3,000th hit. On the other hand, coming off his worst year and now in the midst of his first season of below-average work, the Yankee captain is facing bric-a-bats for his election by the fans to the All-Star game and a newly signed $51 million contract that seemed overly-exuberant even when it was inked.

This duality is being reflected in the constant refrain I've been hearing in the sports gabbing universe: is Derek Jeter over-rated or under-rated. The answer is very clear: yes.

Discussions of this type, of course, are logarithmically complicated because they involve two variables: 1. how good is the player? and 2. how good do "people" think he is? Question one can be answered with a fair degree of specificity in baseball, but question two is trickier.

Derek Jeter, though, seems to stoke the passions of his followers and the nay-sayers. It's somewhat easier to discern how Jeter is "rated" by the sporting public because opinions have been so publicly and vividly pronounced. Consequently, our understanding of his career could use a good application of logic. Let's examine the great, the not-so-great and the mythological.

Great
Derek Jeter is a .312/.383/.449 hitter from the shortstop position over a 16-year career (so far). If that's all you know, you can cast your Hall of Fame vote for him. Add to that truly terrific baserunning, both in stolen base success (80% of 417 attempts) and in the more subtle aspects, like tagging up and going first to third. (Of all the legends that have surfaced about Jeter, it's ironic that few people have recognized what an outstanding baserunner he has been -- the best I've ever seen.)

Jeter's plays hard all the time and his head always seems to be in the game. He is unfazed by big games (because every game the Yankees play is a big game) and big situations (like the 146 games of playoffs he's had the good fortune to participate in.) For what it's worth, he appears to be a gentleman and a good teammate, and he's untainted by scandal despite playing in a town and an era most associated with intemperate behavior.

Not so great

There's not much here. Though he's not a slugger, Jeter has enough power to keep pitchers honest, with 236 lifetime jimmies. He's a legitimate shortstop, but has always had below-average range. Early in his career, when he moved better laterally, he made a lot of errors (24 in 2000; 22 in his rookie year). More recently, he hasn't booted what he hasn't gotten to. But Jeter isn't the stone-handed statue that his critics have claimed.

Mythology

This is where Jeter's admirers skid off the tracks and cloud reality with extraneous noise. They have imbued him with super-hero abilities that fail the smell test -- not to mention objective evaluation. This can best be seen by the accolades accorded him for years as a marvelous fielder -- the avatar of the jump throw -- until defensive measurements become sufficiently refined to refute that bit of legend. 

The myth says Derek Jeter is Mr. Clutch, the ultimate leader, the great Yankee champion with five rings. The mythology is compounded by confirmation bias. Jeterheads believe something about their beloved and screen out any data that doesn't vindicate their view.

Jeter has played a year's worth of games in the playoffs and his numbers are basically a reflection of his regular season work. He's been on base a skooch less but slugged 20 homers. Most of his playoff at-bats have come during his best seasons, so the overall OPS advantage is about what we'd expect, not withstanding that the pitching is theoretically stronger during the post-season. He made a heads-up flip throw to the plate in a playoff game 10 years ago that would have been forgotten by day's end had Jeremy Giambi slid. And he presided over the worst playoff collapse in 100 years of baseball history against the Red Sox in 2005. Do you see "clutch" play or "leadership" in that equation?

The Yankees won the World Series when Jeter was a rookie in 1996. Did he lead the team then? Wasn't leadership the reason Joe Torre will be enshrined in Cooperstown? Doesn't having the spectacular good fortune to play beside  David Cone, Paul O'Neil, Scott Brosius, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Bernie Williams, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Robinson Cano, Mark Texeira, Alex Rodriguez and players of their ilk count for anything? (Luis Soto also has five rings.)

In the end, Derek Jeter is an all-time great shortstop. Minka Kelly's boyfriend is in the next group after Honus Wagner and Alex Rodriguez (if you consider him a SS; it should be noted that he was forced to move to third because there was nowhere for Jeter to go), along with Cal Ripken and Arky Vaughn. Jeter has by far the highest offensive career value (wins against replacement player) after the top two, though Ripken, Vaughn and most of the other top shortstops add anywhere from an edge to a lusty helping of value afield.

I said before that Jeter was the fifth or sixth best shortstop of all time, but that assessment was five years old. He's the third best ever, no artificial ingredients added.

I'll leave poor Derek alone now. I promise.

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