The Futility Infielder

Wow, am I capable of delivering the whammy. On Sunday afternoon I was half-watching the late innings of a pitcher's duel between Andy Pettitte and Mark Mulder while reading a piece written for Bronx Banter by correspondant Christopher DeRosa called "Jeteronomy." I soon joined in a discussion of the piece, in which DeRosa evaluates the common claim that Jeter is overrated, over at Baseball Primer. Looking to make a point about Jeter's defense -- subpar no matter which sophisticated metric you use -- I was frantically typing a post and attempting to place some links within. In doing so, I bollixed the HTML so badly that I crashed the entire thread. Everything that was written is still there, but go ahead, just try to post something new. Ka-blooey! In all my years of posting at Primer, I've never had that happen. I once had a browser go haywire and send my post 11 straight times at five minute intervals, but that's a story for another day.

Here is part of what I had written before messing up the thread (note that the stats have been updated since then, changing the exact totals slightly):

Jeter seems to be back on track after his shoulder injury: .324/.396/.462. [Miguel] Tejada, on the other hand: .259/.312/.439.

This in-season Win Shares calculation has Jeter ranked 5th among AL shortstops overall despite having missed so much time. He's clustered with Tejada and Jose Valentin, only 0.51 WS out of third behind Nomar and A-Rod. Nearly all of that is based on his work with the stick; even with the missing six weeks he's third on offense (Nomar 15.03, A-Rod 11.59, Jeter 9.85 and then Tejada in 4th with 6.91).

As for D, on the other hand, Jeter gets handed his lunch: 1.54 win shares, well off the lead of Jose Valentin (5.53) and Miggy (4.99). Prorated to 1000 innings, it's 7.06 WS for Valentin, 5.46 for Tejada, 4.58 for A-Rod, 4.30 for Nomar, and Jeter waaaaaaaay down at 2.71 per 1000. Even Erick Almonte comes out to 2.93 per 1000 and Enrique Wilson 3.39.

I had started to write something snippy about Miguel Tejada, then thought better of it in the face of some data from DeRosa's piece, and retreated to providing links which were examples of Jeter-bashing on Primer. Shortly afterwards, Tejada got the game-winning hit off of Mariano Rivera, foiling Andy Pettitte's masterful 8-inning, 1-hit effort. When the shit hits the fan, it really hits the fan.

Memo from Above: don't even *think* evil thoughts about Miggy.

That DeRosa piece is well worth reading, whether you're a Yankee fan or a Yank-hater, and let's face it, you're either one or the other. Jeter is a lightning rod for emotion regarding the Yankees. The girlies shriek, the fanboys yell, "Count da ringz!" the media gushes that the captain deserves a Gold Glove, and the statheads cringe. Here is some of what DeRosa has to say:

I’d like talk a bit about Jeter’s rating, but first off, let me recognize that there are more than two positions in the debate. There are:

1. The people who think Jeter can do no wrong, possesses magical abilities, and is better than A-Rod.
2. The people who know A-Rod’s better, but still count Jeter among the elite.
3. The people who think Jeter’s good, while understanding that he’s a not a good fielder.
4. The people who think he’s first and foremost a lousy shortstop, but still a decent player in other ways.
5. The people who think Jeter sucks, resent that girls like him, and hate the Yankees.

Grouping the opinions of 2, 3, and 4 with those of 1 or 5 tends to emotionalize the issue, so let me state up front that though a fan of Jeter, I can see that most of his critics are just trying to evaluate a player as honestly as they can, and get irked when they think a player has an inflated reputation. My premise here is that a player can be praised up and down without really being overrated.

The opinion that Derek Jeter is overrated is common, and fast approaching Point Rudi, when the people convinced of a player’s under- or overrated-ness out-number the holders of the original perception. If you made an all star team of the players whose overrated-ness has upset the most people, Jeter would probably be in the starting line-up, along with Steve Garvey and Pete Rose (although I don’t know that he could move Phil Rizzuto off the shortstop position, what with his awful range and all).

DeRosa goes on to examine various sabermetric rating methods (including Win Shares 2000-2002, the data which gave me pause about Tejada) as well as some comparisons between other players past and present. His argument speaks to just about every faction in the debate, so if you find yourself in one of the aforementioned five categories, you owe it to yourself to read this. And if you don't find yourself in one of those five categories, what the hell are you doing reading this in the first place?

• • •

In the category of New Ways to Look at Stats is this post from Rich's Weekend Basebal BEAT. Rich Lederer takes a look at different ways to rank prolific home run hitters in relation to league home run rates. It shouldn't be a surprise to anybody except that petulant superstar in San Francisco that Babe Ruth tops every list, but some of the other names which float to the upper ranks will have you scurrying to Baseball-Reference.com or your favorite stat book.

• • •

The Bonds/Ruth issue is a bit old, so I shouldn't really get into it. But rereading what Barry said ("The only number I care about is Babe Ruth's. Because as a left-handed hitter, I wiped him out... In the baseball world, Babe Ruth's everything, right? I got his slugging percentage and I'll take his home runs and that's it. Don't talk about him no more.") three weeks ago still ticks me off. So I'll just rattle off a few fairly obvious points:

• Bonds (.595) is still 95 points of slugging percentage behind the Babe (.690), and one year or two years or five of BB at his current level ain't gonna get him there even if he passes Ruth in total homers.

• Bonds would still need to rattle off something along the lines of a 94-46 record with a 122 ERA+ as a pitcher to approach the Babe's total contribution on the diamond in the regular season.

• Bonds would need to PITCH THE RED SOX TO A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP (or two) before he could top the Babe as far as World Series feats go.

• When that happens (i.e., when Hell freezes over and I vote Republican), Bonds will still trail the Babe in the sheer weight of his total contribution to American culture. Where's Barry's home run for the dying kid, or his "Called Shot"? Who cares that he makes more than the President of the United States? Which enemy of ours will charge into battle telling American soldiers, "To Hell with Barry Bonds!"

If Bonds needs any further clarification on the topic, he can look at that organ pumping inside his chest and wonder whether it's Barry the fans won't take into their hearts, or the other way around.

• • •

Enough Bonds-hating from me. Another interesting Sunday thread on Baseball Primer brought Barry's father, Bobby Bonds, into a comparison with Reggie Jackson, with a poster named Tom stating, "I always say that Bobby Bonds was the same player as Reggie with lousy luck."

On the surface of it, comparing the two seems odd, because Reggie holds a considerable edge in total homers (563 to 332) and other career numbers, not to mention magazine covers and memorable quotes. But Bonds and Jackson are almost exactly the same age and debuted one year apart, naturals for comparison. In my quick assessment, I made a few points:

• Bobby's career line of .268/.353/.471 (130 OPS+) bears more than a passing resemblance to Jackson .262/.356/.490 (136 OPS+).

• Both had power, considerable speed (Reggie stole 228 in his career and reached double-digits 10 time), and a ton of strikeouts (Bobby holds the single season record, Reggie the career mark).

• Bonds hurt his hand, tripping on a turf seam in his first game as a Cub in 1981 (his final season). That's some pretty godawful luck. But he was 35 and had already been in serious decline (.203/.305/.316 the season before). Reggie had dismal seasons at 35 (.237/.330/.428) and 37 (.194/.290/.340) but rebounded both times, helping to push himself well over the 500 homer mark and into baseball immortality.

So there's a bit of sense to that argument. But I never got to see Bobby in his prime, and could probably count the number of times I saw him play on one hand. So I invited Primer's resident Giants fan (and Most Valuable Poster nominee) Steve Treder to weigh in. Steve rose to the occasion:

One need only look at how many times he was traded to suspect that Bonds was a player who didn't endear himself to management. Nobody was ready to give him a late-career break, as for instance the A's did with Jackson, bringing him back for a farewell season at age 41. Say what you will about Jackson's obnoxiousness, but teams (rightly or wrongly) perceived him as a harder worker, and a better role model for young players, than Bonds...

I think Bonds would have been better appreciated than he was if he hadn't come up with a team with an established superstar in center field, and thus been allowed to play (at least most of) his major league career as a center fielder... Good as he was, the Giants always seemed to be a bit unsatisfied with him; they wanted him to strike out less and hit .300, regardless of the fact that even with his flaws he was almost certainly the best leadoff man in baseball in 1969-74.

Coming up behind Willie Mays and needing to change positions, with management not able to appreciate your unique talents, still saddling you with the weight of expectations.. well, that's a bit of bad luck indeed. And so is the fact that Bonds is struggling with illness at age 57, suffering from lung cancer and having recently undergone open-heart surgery while Reggie gets another victory lap.

One more note on Bonds and Jackson. At Arizona spring training in 1986, I tried to get autographs of both. Bobby, then the Cleveland Indians hitting coach, dutifully signed. Reggie, still playing with the California Angels, brushed right past me and wouldn't sign. That was my bad luck when it came to these two.