Here Are Some Derek Jeter Statistics That Will BLOW YOUR MIND
Clickbait WSD in the house. Listen to this week’s episode of Red Line Radio. We have a LONG debate about Derek Jeter and this week’s Hall of Fame vote. It got heated because Chief is a goddamn moron and can’t separate individual accomplishments from team accomplishments. Play the show in the background as you read this blog.
LINKS:
I got this thing about me where the more people like something I deem decent to solid to pretty good, the more I kinda hate it.
For instance I fucking HATE the Joker at this point. I saw it and thought it was decent. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but far from the worst. It’s a movie I may watch while it’s on TV in the coming months, but won’t ever get ‘Shawshanked’ by it. It’s just that after everyone in both real life and internet life sucked it off non-stop, I grew a deep seated hatred for it. People hate me for that.
Another example are the hot wings at Bird’s Nest. Are they good? You bet. But there are a handful of spots I’d pick over them, such as Buffalo Joe’s, Output and Jake Melnick’s for example. But again, if I say I don’t think those things are FUCK YOU OMG good then people go batshit crazy.
Derek Jeter is my latest example. By now you’ve seen my troll job that made its rounds on the internet this week. I’ve legitimately gotten death threats over the fake ballot, and I will say this: Derek Jeter was a great baseball player. Clutch as can be. A billion hits and big time moments. But at the same time, when looking at his statistical output OBJECTIVELY, he’s far from one of the GOATs and at this point I hate his fucking guts.
Here are a few stats:
Defense:
– Negative 152 defensive runs saved (impeding a run from scoring by making a non-routine play): worst in baseball history and more than 2x the second worst ever
– Negative 66.1 ultimate zone rating (number of outs above or below average in range runs (explained below) or error runs: worst in baseball history
– 89.3 Range Runs rating, (how well he gets to baseballs not in his vicinity): worst in baseball history, 2x more than 2nd worst ever
– 11.2 Def rating, (how he fields his position with respect to league average): 8th worst in baseball history
Just a god fucking awful defensive short stop.
Then we get to his offense:
– Career .817 OPS/.130 ISO, .350 BABIP
Now BABIP normalizes over a career, and it normalizes because of a player’s batted ball profile. If you evaporate baseballs like say… Yoan Moncada, you’ll carry a higher than league average BABIP. Simply put, if you’re hitting baseballs really fucking hard, you’ll have more hits. But Derek Jeter’s career .817 OPS and .130 ISO tell me he hit a LOT of singles. If he were pissing on baseballs left and right, those two numbers would be way higher and his career .350 BABIP would make at least some sense.
This was a long winded way of saying he *to an extent* lucked out offensively quite frequently over the course of his entire career. Flare single after flare single. He’s lucky Baseball Savant wasn’t around so I could smack ya’ll in the face with a mediocre batted ball profile to prove my point.
Oh, and his WAR is above 70 – that’s a cumulative statistic and he reached it because he played 20 seasons. His best ability by FAR was staying on the field, and there is no sarcasm in this statement, playing 150+ games is absolutely a great skill, trait, whatever you want to call it. That’s straight out of the Bill James encyclopedia of advanced stats.
Now I’ll reiterate my take from yesterday: Derek Jeter should have unquestionably been a first ballot HoF inductee. But to crucify someone for not voting for him? Fuck outta here. Ya know why I say that? There are eight (8!) players on the list you can objectively make a case for that should have been voted in ahead of him. Now I’m not saying they *SHOULD* have been voted in ahead of him, I’m saying the argument could be made for all of the players below:
– Roger Clemens
– Barry Bonds
– Curt Schilling
– Sammy Sosa
– Andruw Jones
– Scott Rolen
– Gary Sheffield
– Manny Ramirez
There are obvious reasons why some of these guys haven’t been voted in and won’t be, but that’s all opinion. Anyone looking at the voting objectively should be able to see each side. Then we get to the gray area players: Jeff Kent, Andy Pettitte and Todd Helton.
If you look at Kent’s career compared to another Hall of Fame player Ryne Sandburg, Kent should also be in as he was better just about any way you sliced it statistically. Pettitte, like Jeter, was one of the best big game players ever and was only ~4 fWAR shy of Jeter’s ~72 fWAR mark. That’s 10 right players right there before you even get to Helton, who was an offensive freak for 15 years or so.
Obviously Jeter had a TON of post season success. But that’s an argument in and of itself. Do you value team accomplishments like World Series rings over individual successes? Or do you look at a player and his candidacy solely based on their individual career without taking team success into account? I think a case can be made for both, but baseball isn’t golf or tennis. No one player wins a World Series themselves, it takes a team effort, not an individual one.
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Now again, Jeter would have been on my ballot. But Yankees fans crying about him not being unanimous is crazy to me. Really good fucking player? Yes. 100% inductee? Fuck outta here. If he were on the Twins, White Sox, A’s, Rockies, etc. he wouldn’t have came CLOSE to 100%, even if he did win the same number of ‘ships with those organizations.
If any of the statistics I provided offend you, I’m sorry the truth hurt your feelings.