The Dord of Darien

Musings from the Mayor of the Internet

Q: Could God make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?

A: Derek Jeter.

Derek Jeter won the Gold Glove this year for the same reason he can snag a greatest-hits list of starlets and have his own scent of cologne and instantaneously own any room into which he walks:

Because he’s super, super, crazy rich?

He oozes Jeterness.

I think they make an ointment for that.

Perhaps you have not heard of Jeterness.

Surely I have not, for I am new to the vagaries of the baseball, not to mention baseball journalism and certainly the World Wide Tubes. Please enlighten me about this Derek Jeter fellow, of whom certainly nobody has ever spoken before, and whose name certainly does not return two million results on Google.

It is an all-encompassing and -embodying quality that amalgamates Derek Jeter’s greatest attributes into one succinct air of being.

Well, that explains that, then.

It is equal parts cool, attractive, intelligent, heroic, humble and confident. Men want Jeterness. Women swoon at those who have it.

So basically he’s exactly like TV’s Beyond Good and Evil’s Jade, of longest article ever fame.

And the New York Yankees are going to lavish him for it.

Apparently sportswriters will do the same.

Right now, for the first time in his career, Derek Jeter is a free agent, and this development is spurring a great debate.

And a lousy article.

There are two sides: to pay or not to pay, a fairly black-and-white construct.

Awesome mixed metaphor. It’s two-sided, but it’s a construct, see, and it’s black and white! Derek Jeter perhaps is an Othello chit.

Hardcore Jeter loyalists want the Yankees to open their overstuffed pocketbook and write him a blank check. Jeter realists see his age, skill set and quantifiable contributions to the team and want him back – he is, after all, the only shortstop in this free-agent class worthy of wearing Pinstripes – albeit at market price, which is a good $10 million a year less than Jeter will end up getting.

I was a part of the big goofy crowdsourcing experiment on Fangraphs, and the considered opinion of the Graphin’ Fans is that market value for Derek Jeter is around $15M/year. His average WAR/162 is 4.8, which is worth about $20M in marginal money. Take off a hunk because he’s old and coming off a lousy year, and $15M is about where you end up. I mean, he’s not Edgar Renteria who’s been brutal for years — in 2009, Derek Jeter was worth 6.5 WAR. 6.5! One year ago!

So the point is: you think Derek Jeter is going to sign for $25M/year?

The reality hews closer to the former than the latter, and it is because of his Jeterness. Just watch.

Oh, I will watch. I will watch with bated breath to see if your prediction of $25M/year comes true. Spoiler warning: it will not.

When Jeter sits atop the dais with Hal and Hank Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and Joe Girardi for the press conference to formally announce his signing, they will laud his leadership and warble on about how he’s a winner. The best part will be when someone talks about what Jeter means to the Yankees, then doesn’t bother giving actual examples, like it’s some self-explanatory phenomenon.

Maybe they just figure everybody in the press will explain it for them. Just like you’re doing now. Just like everybody always does.

Jeterness, at its greatest, is quite spectacular.

Yeah, man, we know.

It is diving into the stands

Which is a pretty weird thing for a guy who’s supposed to be in the middle of the field to do if you think about it for a few seconds.

and making plays deep in the hole at shortstop

And not making any plays that are even like shading toward his left at all ever.

and delivering in clutch situations during the playoffs.

Derek Jeter, career postseason: .309 / .377 / .472 / .850
Derek Jeter, career regular-season: .314 / .385 / .452 / .837

Alex Rodriguez, career postseason: .290 / .396 / .528 / .925

Jeterness also has this sick way of zombifying otherwise-rational Yankees fans into believing these singular moments of greatness somehow weave a tapestry of never-ending awesomeness, like Jeter is without fault, flaw or iota of weakness otherwise.

Jeter’s pretty damn good. Defense is lousy, and his power was never that great (and is tailing off), but he gets on base really well. Sportswriters like to ball-wash him for having… what are they called? Untangibles? Infringibles? Oh, right: imponderables.

Not that you know anybody who’d do a thing like that, right?

In the end, his Jeterness made his Gold Glove, and it makes it difficult to stomach, too.

No, his objectionably bad defense is what makes it difficult to stomach. And I prefer Alex Remington’s theory as to why Jetes won.

Anyone who watched a couple Yankees games this season – even the most ardent Jeter supporter – could say his defense isn’t what it used to be, and what it used to be was never much more than above average.

No, his defense is pretty much exactly what it used to be, which was: never much more than way, way below average.

Jeter wasn’t ever Luis Aparicio, Mark Belanger, Ozzie Smith, Omar Vizquel – and those are the only players to win more than his five Gold Gloves.

Actually, according to Fangraphs, Ricky Gutierrez is the only shortstop in history to accumulate fewer defensive runs than Derek Jeter. So here is a list of players Derek Jeter "wasn’t ever:"

• Chriz Gomez
• Shawon Dunston
• Michael Young
• Jose Offerman
• Jeff Blauser
• Tony Womack
• Alex Cintron

Should I? Okay, one more:

• Alex Rodriguez

So how, well into his 30s, does Jeter keep winning the award? It’s a number of factors, chief among them the paucity of recognizable shortstops in the American League.

I’d say chief among them is intellectual laziness on the part of the voters. I mean, you can’t name any other shortstops in the American League? Cesar Izturis has been playing for nine thousand years, and he’s pretty good (defensively, I mean). I hear there’s some fellow called Marco Scutaro who plays for the Red Sox — you’ve never heard of him? Not once in the many thousands of articles from before the season that talked about what an awesome hitter he is now that he’s finally "matured?" (Marky Scoots, 2010: .275 / .333 / .388 / .721) (Me, 2010: told you so)

As much as you’d like to think the voting bloc – managers and coaches in each league – puts thought and effort into the awards, sometimes it’s as simple as which name pops into one’s head first.

Right. Laziness. Like I said. And distinctly unlike what you said.

And when you think shortstop, you think Jeter. Because, really, who else is there?

When I think shortstop, I tend to think Starlin Castro. But that’s mostly because, even though he was hellaciously bad this year, he was not Ryan Theriot and I will never stop thanking him for that.

Elvis Andrus? Alexei Ramirez? Jason Bartlett? All more deserving, sure, but none with nearly the Q rating.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, fucking whoa there, hoss. One of these things is not like the others. Andrus I’ll give you. Ramirez I’ll give you. I’ll even throw in a Cliff Pennington, who you hilariously overlook in your list of unfairly overlooked players, adding a delicious slice of irony to my evening. But Jason Bartlett?

Jason Bartlett, 2010: -3 TZ, -3 TZ/135, -10.4 UZR, -13.8 UZR/150, 0 FSR

Congratulations. I believe you have found the only AL shortstop who was actually less deserving of the Gold Glove than Derek Jeter.

Also, what’s a Q rating? I’m going to assume it’s a new defensive metric made up by this guy. I bet it says Jeter’s the best!

And that is the thrust of Jeter’s free agency. It’s not about what he is as much as what he was, and what he was now helps define who he is.

That was a whole lot of babble right there. Is is was was who he is was he who who he is is not that it it is. Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Jeter was a player worthy of a nine-figure deal: a Hall of Fame-caliber shortstop on a championship team. Those are rare, and they deserve to be paid accordingly. Once those skills diminish, however, so does Jeter’s usefulness. And allowing anything beyond a modicum of emotion to infiltrate the negotiations puts the Yankees in a position to lose.

All of those things are true. However, all of these things are also true:

• Jeter was pure liquid awesome in 2009. One bad year doesn’t prove he’s cooked.

• There are, as you said earlier, no other shortstops on the market who are worth buying. It’s like the dessicated corpse of Ultimate Supreme World Series Hero Edgar Renteria, and big fat fatty who never ever gets on base ever Juan Uribe. And Eckstein!

• I can’t even type the words "the Yankees’ farm system" without laughing. So let’s just say the Yankees’ trade-fodder system has nothing going on.

This won’t be the standard golden parachute, after all. Whereas companies bestow exorbitant bonuses upon retiring executives, the deal the Yankees offer Jeter won’t be for going away.

Uh… yeah. We know that. Did you just hear?

He’s still playing, still playing shortstop for now, and so he’ll be compared with other shortstops, and with other players in his tax bracket, and if he keeps playing like he did last season, the deal will only look more grim.

He will, more to the point, be compared with the other available shortstops. Who are all really, really bad. I don’t think Troy Tulowitzki is available right this minute.

Jeter will get at least three years, and though the Yankees want to talk about $15 million per year, the number should creep closer to $20 million in the end.

I thought you said earlier he’d sign for $25M. Or are you saying you believe — contrary to things like evidence and reason and even smelly things like consensus — that Derek Jeter’s market value is something like $7M? You’re kind of loopy either way here.

Last season, he was one of only five players to top that benchmark, and he doesn’t want to slide underneath it, not when the man to the right of him, Alex Rodriguez, made nearly 50 percent more than him last year. Jeter never complained about it because he’s bigger than that. You know, the Jeterness.

What? You’re looney-tunes, man. Jeter never complained about "only" making $22.6M to put 1.3 wins on the board because he’s "bigger than that?" Probably it’s because absolutely fucking nobody could make that much money, do that poor a job, and complain that he’s underpaid.

I mean, here. Alex Rodriguez made almost 50% more money than Jeter. But you know what? He contributed about 120% more wins: 2.9. So, yeah, Jeter probably knew better than to bitch, hey?

It does serve him well. It’s easy to hate Jeter the player because he’s so good.

It’s also easy to hate Jeter the player because he has five goddamn Gold Gloves and is the worst-fielding shortstop of all time.

It’s really, really difficult to abhor Jeter the person. He’s smart. He stays out of trouble. He takes ownership of his shortcomings. He’s warm. He’s revered by teammates, legitimately so. He’s genuine. He embodies the Yankee Way as much as Gehrig.

He’s so dreamy. If I were a woman, I’d vote for him for husband. Actually, since I’m in Massachusetts, maybe I will anyhow.

If there’s anything to dislike, it’s that there’s too much to like, and he sets an impossible example for the rest of us.

Kind of like how you go to a job interview and tell the guy your biggest flaw is that you work too hard, right? And then he kind of gives you a thin little embarrassed smile like he can’t believe you actually said that. Picture me doing that right now.

That’s what the Yankees are up against. They want to be judicious with this contract, apply to it all the logic in the world. But they can’t.

The Yankees, one must admit, are known more for solving problems by applying all the money in the world. Also they probably do about $11M/year in Jeter jersey and t-shirt sales, and that offsets it a wee bit.

This is Derek Jeter. He transcends sensibility. His Jeterness is corrosive on reason, intoxicating on emotion.

So I’ve noticed.

And in the end, it will wear down the Yankees and charm them again just like it does everyone else.

I’m just about ready to pay him the $20M myself. I need the Jeterness. I want to look at it, feel it, suck on it. I want it to ooze all over me.

But mostly I just want him to sign already so these articles will stop. Because they’re awful.


November 12th, 2010 Posted by | Baseball | no comments

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