Brothelizing Derek Jeter

I believe it was told in Ted Williams' memoir "My Turn at Bat".  The story is that during a major league baseball game in the 1940s, an umpire was upset with the jeering he was getting from one bench, and finally had enough.  He walked over and threw the entire bench out of the game.  One coach, a quiet and respected gentleman went up to the umpire and said in so many words, "Look, I was sitting on the end of the bench and never said a word and you know that.  I've been in this game for thirty years and never gotten thrown out."  The umpire replied "I'm sure you didn't, and I'm sure you didn't say a thing.  But you know, it's just like a raid on a whorehouse.  The good go with the bad."

The good go with the bad indeed.  And so it is as we reflect on the career of Derek Jeter, which ended not with a bang but a whimper yesterday, a 58-foot Baltimore chop single and a celebratory removal for a pinch runner.  There is plenty of good to reflect upon; twenty years essentially without scandal even in the largest of fishbowls; an accumulation of offensive statistics that leaves him in the top ten on the all time hits list, participating in some excellent teams that won five championships.

Would that, of course, we could stop there.  But unfortunately, we cannot separate the good from the bad, and Yankee fans most particularly seem unable to do so.  Therefore, it is their sworn duty to create myth where no fact exists, and try to turn this offensive specialist into a fielder that he pretty much never was.

There's no getting around it, the American League awarded five of its once-treasured Gold Gloves to a shortstop who, in at least four of those years, was distinctly below the league average as a defensive shortstop.  Worse yet, given several opportunities to move him to a place where he could do less damage, the Yankees simply declined to do so.  At what cost?  Well, almost certainly an opportunity for the team to go out with a playoff spot (2014), although it's hard to say where else that might have had a tangible effect.

Ten years ago, as we were finally coming to grips with the fact that RBIs were not exactly the best way to gauge offensive value, defensive metrics in baseball were a bit primitive.  We knew that fielding percentage wasn't worth much (it told what you did with the ball when you reached it, but "reaching it more often" was more valuable than an error here and there), but weren't able to quantify fielding as well even though we had the data.

We have now been able to look at that data much more analytically, and more importantly (and sadly for the Jeterator community) have been able to quantify fielding on an ongoing basis and back into history.  The currency of baseball is runs, and the goal of pitching and defense is preventing them as the goal of offense is producing them.  We know from marvelous analysis that the two most vital offensive acts to producing runs are 
(1) Getting on base
(2) Getting multiple bases with hits at each at-bat
These are measured, in order, by on-base percentage (OBP) and slugging percentage (SLG), often combined by adding them to produce on-base plus slugging, or OPS.  Historic offensive forces like Ruth, Gehrig and Williams have career OPSs over 1.000.  An OPS over .800 is All-Star level offensively; over .900 is a great offensive season; under .700, well, you better have a good glove.

On the defensive side, we have finally been able to turn defensive analysis into the currency of runs based on range factors, zones of coverage, ability to get to plays, plays made, plays made successfully, etc.  Because there needs to be a reference point, the league-average at your position in the majors is regarded as the zero point.  Therefore, for the key composite metric, Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), a league average defensive shortstop (think Stephen Drew) has 0.0 DRS for the year, and that's actually good, especially at shortstop.

Note -- DRS by its very nature requires a lot of data and is vulnerable to sample size.  You don't look at DRS for a two-week period; it has almost no meaning.  DRS is a stat for a season or multiple seasons.

The reason it is important to convert defense to runs, by the way, is that it allows you to think in terms of wins in the calculation.  Generally, if you think that ten runs in one of these stats equates to a win, you're about right; that is the way the analysts have discovered the conversion maps.  If you think about it, it makes sense; every run does not mean the difference in a win or a loss.  Smarter folks than I have looked at this to make that equivalence.

Why the statistical wandering?  Because despite the fans' hagiography regarding Jeter's defense, and despite the five Gold Gloves, the sad facts are these.  Adam Dunn, the stone-handed slugger who also just retired, had the third-most negative DRS of any player in major league history -- 165 defensive runs below a league-average player.  Second on the list at 196 career negative DRS is Gary Sheffield, another slugging player who clogged outfields over a lengthy and productive career.  First among all players at every single position, at an astonishing 236 defensive runs below league average for his career is the one and only Derek S. Jeter (http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/44294/a-few-notes-on-derek-jeters-defense).

We can take a lot of time explaining why this is, although there are some outstanding analyses of his lack of range (http://grantland.com/features/the-tragedy-derek-jeter-defense is probably the best), but that's not the point of this piece.

It is simply this: take the bad with the good.  Great guy, played on a bunch of good teams, historic accumulating offensive player, stayed out of trouble, hit as well in the postseason against tougher competition as he did during the season.  But while he made the plays that he got to, he got to far fewer than a shortstop should, and stayed a decade past his welcome at his position and possibly cost his team a postseason spot.

In the  book "The Yankee Years", Joe Torre notes that when the Yankees traded for the much-better defensive (and offensive) shortstop Alex Rodriguez in 2004, they never went to Jeter to ask him to move to third to make room.  Rodriguez volunteered to move, and that was that.  Jeter didn't go to the team (I wouldn't have either) to offer to move.  If we believe Torre, it was just that.

Now, Jeter may have actually believed he was a better defender.  Certainly there are parts of the book and other sources that suggest that before the 2009 season, it was suggested that he work on his defense, particularly his range to his left.  To his credit, he did, and had better numbers (a plus-4 DRS in 2009 vs. the -13 and -5 DRS the previous couple years), although it didn't take, his next three years were -8, -14 and -10.  But the references also note that he was surprised at the suggestion.  Apparently this news about his bad defense was, well, news to him.

When we do the "bad with the good" analysis, of course, you'll notice that I do not cite his offensive career numbers as a shortstop as a good thing, let alone mention them at all.  It is not a good thing.  It is not a good thing because his being positioned at shortstop for his entire career -- in only three of his 20 years did he not have a negative DRS -- was a detriment to the Yankees' chances of winning.  How do you celebrate over 3,000 hits as a shortstop if playing him there at shortstop was a mistake?  Whether it was his own intransigence or, more likely, the Yankee organization declining to risk the image, it hurt the team.

I cite his farewell year as the sad example.  The facts are what they are; the Yankees finished four games out of a playoff spot.  Having lost a chance at a playoff spot last week, they went 3-2 in their last five games, playing some non-regulars, but were also four games out on Tuesday when they were eliminated.  Derek Jeter finished the year with a -29 DRS, meaning that between his playing short and a league-average shortstop -- and they had Brendan Ryan and Stephen Drew on the team-- the Yankees lost about three games.  His .617 OPS was simply abysmal -- we look at a figure called OPS+ ("adjusted OPS") which compares a player to a standard 100, the league average offensively; 110 is good; 130 excellent and 150 or more a real star.  Jeter in 2014 was at 75 OPS+.

Sadly, there are four 2014 wins for the Yankees to be found between his defense and offense, and the numbers support it.  The Captain retired about a year too late for Yankee fans.

The actual good has gone; let us try not to make good where it does not exist.  Celebrate the player for what he did do, but please do not try to turn his flaws into virtues.

Copyright 2014 by Robert Sutton