Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Cochise
I'm not saying that he is what he was at one time, or even that he's the best, but to say he's the worst is pretty out there.
|
Derek Jeter's complete ineptitude at the six is a pretty unanimous fact among the Saber nerds like myself. I explain Derek's being rewarded with the gold glove despite being among the worst for a couple reasons.
First, the gold glove is heavily influenced by offensive performance. Its not supposed to be, but lets not kid ourselves, a guy who can really rake the ball becomes a more popular star, high profile, hes looked at more often, and if he doesnt butcher his position, a good offensive player is given the benefit of the doubt. Throw in the whole "the leader of the Yankees" mystique, and its harder to stand in the way.
Second, when a ball *IS* hit at Jeter (except this year) he has been money, clean professional fielding, spectacular and pretty-looking, when he gets to the ball, he hasnt missed the throw very often till this year, and he's looked very good doing it with Athletic double plays.
The problem is, he's got feet of stone, he doesnt GET to many balls in order to show off his accurate arm. To a baseball fan, even a non-Yankee fan, already dazzled by the offense and the leadership, you want to believe hes a good defender, and when you see him play (again until recently), he looked really good.
However, if you have two shortstops, one guy is money (say 98%) but he only gets to about 3/4 of the balls he should get to, the other guy is a more mortal 96% on balls he gets to, but he gets to 85% of them, Jeter may look good, but he costs his team more runs than the 2nd more ordinary-looking shortstop, because range is very hard to see.
This is only changing with Jeter this year because his already-pathetic range has gotten even slower to the point where its now finally painfully obvious to even the casual fan that he just isnt getting to the ball. The stats have been seeing this for years, and the fans are finally seeing it this year.