Derek Jeter is overrated

Offense: I admitted that Derek Jeter is a good offensive hitter. He has a career .387 OBP, which is good, but not great. The media makes him out to be one of the BEST hitters in baseball. A statistic developed by Tom Tango, weighted on base average(wOBA) uses linear weights to measure everything a batter does at the plate and on the bases. Jeter's career wOBA is .375. It's on the same scale as OBP, so again, Jeter is above average, but not superstar quality. Again, I've admitted that Jeter is a good offensive performer, but calling him overrated does not mean to call him a poor offensive player, just that he is not as good as most believe him to be. Clutch: Let me specify exactly what I meant about Clutch ability. There are without a doubt clutch performances. Everyone that has watched a baseball game has seen a well timed base hit, a big play in the field at the right time, or a key strikeout. These exist. But do clutch performers exist? Bill James sums it up quite nicely, "How is it that a player who possesses the reflexes and the batting stroke and the knowledge and the experience to be a .260 hitter in other circumstances magically becomes a .300 hitter when the game is on the line? How does that happen?" The idea that a player's true skill becomes greater in a big time situation is proposterous. A handfull of successful clutch at bats does not prove that clutch is a skill either. By using the binomial probability distribution, there is a 4.8% chance that a .300 hitter will bat .500 in twenty or so at bats, just because of random chance [1]. A .300 hitter is expected to get a hit 30% of the time. If all of his clutch at bats end in being outs, that could be expected because even a .300 hitter is expected to make an out 70% of the time. A lot of clutch ability is due to luck. As I mentioned previously, there is a statistic for this, called Clutch. If it were a skill, it wouldn't fluctuate as much as it does. These are the Clutch numbers for Jeter's past five seasons including 2010: 0.84,-0.85,-0.28,-0.17, 2.33 [2]. As you can see, Jeter had a huge clutch season in 2006 with a rating of 2.33. But then the next three years were all negative, and now partly through 2010, he is positive again. The correlation between year to year clutch performance is .01 [3]. If it were a true skill, it would be more consistent, but it's not. Defense: The only problem with these spectacular plays, is that he makes them look spectacular. A diving catch for him wouldn't be a diving catch for a shortstop with good range. The argument about the Gold Glove winners is a good one. Most of the gold glove winners didn't deserve them. This award is voted upon by people that don't look at range, they look at the 'big plays' they remember. The 2004 'dive into the stands' was a big play that almost everyone remembered. Lets not forget though, that he took three full strides after catching the ball and before he went into the stands. If it wasn't for the bloody face, it wouldn't be as remembered. When it comes down to true defensive ability, all I can say is that Jeter has cost his team about 100 runs, or roughly 10 wins, over the course of his career. He isn't a good shortstop, con even agreed about him having weak range. The Team: I'm not saying he has nothing to do with the team's success, he does, because he is a good player. But having five championship rings doesn't make a player better than a player with none, because that is a team accomplishment. We can't quantify leadership or discipline, so I'll leave this one up in the air. The reason for him to forfeit his position to Arod was because Arod was better. Much better. According to positional adjustments, SS is the second hardest position, after Catcher. Giving the job to Arod would have helped the team by saving more runs. Jeter would have been better suited for 3B because it utilizes less range than SS. Arod was better, that's all it comes down to. How does this payroll claim make any sense? He is being paid $22 million in 2010 [4]. He has never once given the Yankees a home town discount, surprising considering he wants to finish his career as a Yankee. If he was paid less, that gives the organization more money to spend on other good players. Jeter isn't the only player on the team that this applies to. If Arod made $10 million less then that would mean more money to spend on other talent, thus helping the team win championships. Just because the Yankees have an outrageously high payroll doesn't mean they want to spend every last bit of it. Every team has a figure they don't want to exceed in terms of payroll, even the Yankees. Conclusion: The argument is whether he is overrated or not. I believe John Kruk said awhile back that he would rather have Derek Jeter over Alex Rodriguez. Based on what? Intangibles? Leadership? This is one of the reasons why he is overrated, because he is simply not as good as Arod when it comes to hitting or fielding. The media over estimates how great Jeter really is. No one calls him the BEST but many consider him to be ONE OF the best. As I already stated, he has never given the Yankees a home town discount, and he probably wont when they negotiate his next contract. How does he put the Yankees first? I just don't see it. Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.fangraphs.com... [3] http://www.baseballprospectus.com... [4] http://www.baseball-reference.com...