The Futility Infielder

Coming to Jeter's Defense... Or Not

I've been getting a bit more response from my readers lately, both in the comments feature of this blog (found at the end of each post, where it usually says "Comments [0]"), via email, and through other people's weblogs. One of my readers, John C., has offered some lengthy comments relating to the Yankees lately. John commented on the Rob Neyer element of my previous post about Mike Mussina, and in writing a reply, I went over the gizmo's length of 2500 characters, so I'm dragging this into the fairway to craft an even lengthier reply. But first, here's what John wrote:

Jay,

All props to Rob Neyer for his sabermetric efforts but, really, is this the first wrong-headed thing he's uttered about the Yankees, whom he admits he loathes? Remember that halfway through last season he called Alfonso Soriano the biggest bust of the AL rookie class [he's been curiously silent about Sori this season ;-) ] based on nothing but his own bias against everything pinstriped. Remember that he's the standard bearer of the belief that Derek Jeter is "the worst fielding shortstop in baseball." When Michael Kay asked Neyer how many actual games he had seen Jeter play, he first admitted that he barely sees a handful of Yankee regular season games a year, then, of course, pointed to stats like range factor and zone rating that he himself at times has questionned. Kay's point was that "range", "hands", and "arm strength" could not be determined by simply reading a series of numbers that didn't account for the type of pitching staff (fly ball/strikeout vs. ground ball/contact) and the strengths and weaknesses of the infielders around him (which affect positioning, DP opportunities, etc.). Neyer sneered at Kay and actually alluded to this interview in a column the next week as an example of how the New York media was biased. As with Bill James, his mentor and one-time employer, Neyer suffers too deeply the failures of the Royals against the Yankees in his formative fan years. And that's something you couldn't glean from any stats.

John C.

No, John, this wouldn't be the first time Neyer was wrong about the Yanks, and yes, he's been slow to give Soriano his due, but let's remember that Soriano's glaring weakness, namely BALL FOUR, lowers his On Base Percentage considerably (right now it's a rather pedestrian .334 despite a .306 batting average) and keeps him from being a truly devastating offensive force the way Alex Rodriguez or Jason Giambi are.

I don't think the Neyer vs. Kay matchup is as one-sided as John makes it out to be, particularly if the topic is Derek Jeter's defense. And before we go down this road, let's just acknowledge that if Neyer is biased, then Kay, a Yankee employee who rubs most non-Yankee fans the wrong way, is even more so. Now, those of us who watch our team 100+ times a year (as I do, and perhaps you do too) have a tendency to believe "our guy is the best" if we see the great plays he makes over the course of all of those games. But when we look at the stats, we find that isn't always the case.

So long as we're on the subject... on Saturday, NY Times writer Tyler Kepner, who covers the Yankee beat, touted Jeter for the Gold Glove. This would be a laughable suggestion if it weren't so appalling. It IS a topic that Neyer has addressed before, and more than once.

Jeter isn't, by any objective measure, a great shortstop. In fact, most of the data we have says he's Not Good. Jeter makes a lot of spectacular plays, and he makes them at times when everybody seems to be watching (playoffs, etc). He's got tons of anecdotal evidence on his side. Michael Kay thinks he's great, Tim McCarver thinks he's great, and several millions of viewers who listen to them think he's great. Joe Torre, George Steinbrenner, and every female in the tri-state area between the ages of 5 and 35 give him a hearty thumbs up as well, along with the occasional shreik when he comes to bat (really, it's not pretty when George does this). But by any statistical measure, he is nothing special defensively. While no one fielding stat is definitive, and all of them contain biases, Jeter tends to be at or near the bottom by just about every measure.

Here is a chart showing Jeter's ranking in 2001 and 2002 among other AL shortstops in four major statistical categories: Fielding Percentage, Range Factor (total chances per 9 innings), Zone Rating (percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," as measured by STATS, Inc.), and Double Plays.

           FPCT  RF  ZR  DP

2002 (13)  8T   13  13  13

2001 (10)   6   10  10  10

The number in parentheses after the year is the number of qualifying shortstops in that particular season (those playing in 2/3 of their team's games). So Jeter is dead last out of 13 in three of the categories, and below average in the other one. The picture is the same in 2001--dead last out of the 10 qualifiers in 3 out of 4 categories.

Now, even these stats have their biases, as John noted. They don't account for the type of pitching staff Jeter's playing behind (groundball/flyball/strikeout tendencies), or the strengths and weaknesses of his surrounding fielders. Examining the second consideration first, here's an expanded version of that chart which includes Jeter's neighbors in each of the past two seasons, again with the number of qualifiers in parentheses:

                   FPCT  RF   ZR   DP  PCT

Jeter   2002 (13)   9   13   13   13   15

Jeter   2001 (10)   6   10   10   10   20

Ventura 2002 (12)  11    2    2   6T   64

Brosius 2001  (8)   8    6    4   4T   42

Soriano 2002  (8)   6    8    4    8   31

Soriano 2001  (9)   9    8    7    3   36

If we were to award points based on a reverse ranking order (so that placing 1st out of 13 would get 13 points, and 13th would get 1; ties split the points between the two spots), and then compute the percentage of points each of these seasons has "earned" out of the total possible score... well, we'd have a very crude system that didn't tell us a whole hell of a lot, but what it would say is that of these six player-seasons, only Robin Ventura's 2002 looks to be above average.

But that's a pretty crude system which doesn't take into account the biases we've discussed, nor does it prioritize any of these rankings, or distinguish between very small differences and very large ones (Jeter is two successful chances away from an exact tie with David Eckstein for 8th place in fielding percentage; he's also 30 points worse in Zone Rating than any other shortstop). It's not quite garbage, but I won't get rich by selling these rankings either.

So let's take a look at a system that DOES take those biases into account, namely Bill James' Win Shares system. Now, Win Shares was introduced to the public less than a year ago, and it's far from perfect. But Bill James has spent the past 25 years studying stuff like this, and his system is vastly superior to what I have to offer. James uses a 4-category weighted system (40-30-20-10) which starts from the team's defensive performance and works down to each position and each player's performance. It accounts for strikeouts, for flyballs/groundballs, for lefty/righty pitching balance, for park effects--you name it, and it's in there somewhere.

The four categories James uses to evaluate shortstops are Assists vs. Expected Assists (40 percent), Double Plays vs. Expected Double Plays (30 percent), Error Percentage (20 percent), and Putouts as a Percentage of Team (10 percent).

I don't have a category-by-category breakdown for Jeter's numbers, but in the Win Shares book (which covers through 2001), we can compare Jeter versus hundreds of other shortstops throughout history. The currency which James uses to rank is Fielding Win Shares per 1000 innings, which he then converts to a letter grade. Derek Jeter averages 4.11 FWS per 1000 innings, a low total; a D+ in fact. For some not-so-random comparisons, Joe Tinker is at 7.28 (the highest), Phil Rizzuto at 7.14, Ozzie Smith at 6.42, Rey Ordonez 6.32, Cal Ripken Jr. at 5.69, Nomar Garciaparra at 5.16, Alex Rodriguez at 4.77, and Jose Offerman at 2.85.

Looking at it another way... Jeter ranks 103rd in career innings at shortstop. Of the 102 players above him, only two have lower rates of Fielding Win Shares per 1000 innings. Of the 290 shortstops who make the 3000 inning cut to appear on the list (the equivalent of just over 2 full seasons playing every inning), only 50 had rates lower than Jeter. By any of these measures, Jeter is well below average.

Again, I'm not claming James' system is perfect, but Jeter's performance doesn't look too pretty through that lens. It corroborates the data we already have, as well as other sophisticated measures (Baseball Prospectus puts him at -28 runs below average in 2001 and -27 in 2000, for example). No amount of anti-Yankee bias on the part of Bill James or Rob Neyer will explain that away.

Jeter has a strong arm which allows him to make some spectacular throws, and he's a heady player, which puts him in the right place at the right time for plays like The Play against Oakland in Game Three of the ALDS. But really, he doesn't have much range. He's slow to react to grounders, particularly to his left, though he has improved considerably this season compared to last, probably thanks to being healthier. That doesn't mean he's not an extremely valuable player; anytime you can get that kind of production out of a middle infielder it's a big plus, and anytime you get that combination of leadership, smarts, and durability from a ballplayer, it's an even bigger plus. But the list of Jeter's best qualities doesn't start with his defense, and while I Heart Derek, I won't argue that he's a good-fielding shortstop. Maybe not "the worst fielding shortstop in baseball," but nobody worthy of a Gold Glove either.

Postscript:Though I beat him to the punch by a few hours (not that it matters, because he's likely NOT reading this), Rob Neyer gives his take on the NY Times Gold Glove piece today, and his conclusion is the same: not great. Neyer also notes that it was John Sterling and not Michael Kay (Sterling's radio partner for the last few years) who tried to humiliate Neyer on the air. Though he's a homer, I'll defend Kay to a degree because the man can actually write very coherently. I won't waste my breath defending Sterling though. Even his "Theeeeeeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!" radio call grates on my nerves, and that's about all that distinguishes him.