Apparently, there was a brief buzz about Derek Jeter moving from shortstop to center field, which came from a supposedly misinterpreted Joe Torre comment. I don’t want to regurgitate this whole article, since I agree with Bob Klapisch on most aspects of the whole situation. A few thoughts though: I think it would be a great idea. A-Scrod moves to his natural position at SS. They pick up or call up someone who can hit well and dump him in the less defensively challenging position of 3rd base (is Billy Mueller available? Is Drew Henson still alive?). And you get the ultimate gamer running your outfield. So, in a rovesque move, Torre accidentally floats the idea since you couldn’t really ask him to do it, and Jetes either goes for it or he doesn’t. I don’t blame him for not going for it, but just imagine if he volunteered to do it and seamlessly transitioned to a gold glove quality center fielder. His ultimate gamer status would be off the charts. You’d pretty much have to give him the MVP just for volunteering to do it.Oh, that reminds me of some (and I know this is going to sound ridiculous) Jeter-doesn’t-get-enough-credit bitching I was doing yesterday to Dewy24 and Jimed (who apparently is neither a Blue Jays fan, nor a terrorist). Check out Jeter’s placement in the AL MVP voting in the 10 full seasons he’s played in MLB:
Year - Place in voting - First place votes
96 ---- didn't place ------- 0
97 ---- 24th -------------- 0
98 ---- 3rd --------------- 2
99 ---- 6th --------------- 1
00 ---- 10th ------------- 0
01 ---- 10th -------------- 0
02 ---- didn't place ------- 0
03 ---- 21st -------------- 0
04 ---- 13th -------------- 0
05 ---- 10th -------------- 0
In his entire career, only 3 voters (probably 2) thought he was the most valuable player in the AL. And you could only really say he was in the conversation once. But ask those same 28 voters who the MVP of the AL was over this 10 year stretch, and how many of them say Jeter? Now, I know the MVP game: it's all about the sexy stats and what Juan Gonzalez or whoever does in any given year, not the performance over a 10 year span. I'm just saying, has there ever been a player more valuable to a team as successful as the Yankees in a 10 year span and got less respect in MVP voting (and this is just for the AL, not league-wide like in the NBA)? If, for the sake of argument, you give him a 25 for the didn't place years, his average ranking in AL MVP voting is 14.7. It's a ridiculous award. As far as the actual award goes, there was zero question in any of the voters' heads about A-Rod being higher than Jeter in 2005, but I bet you there was also close to zero question about who was actually more valuable to the Yankees.
I also heard a rumor this morning that the Yankees may get Juan Pierre out of the Marlins fire sale. There’s your center fielder, there’s your leadoff man, allowing Jeter to stay at short and move back to his more natural 2 spot in the lineup. JP is a career .305 hitter with a career On Base Percentage of .355, which I’d like to be 30 points higher, but he’s good for about 50 stolen bases a year, which the Yankees could definitely use. He certainly killed us in the 03 Series. The rumor has the Yanks parting with Scott Proctor (good riddance) and someone else I don’t know. I like it.
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7 comments:
Um, are you speaking English? I didn't understand a word. Maybe it's a Y chromosome thing. But I do know that "jeter" is brilliant to say in a Boston accent. And I heard someone say he's what you'd get if The Rock and a Muppet had a child
-Amy
Si, Amycita, eso era Ingles. Quizas tu prefires que yo escribo de otras cosas, cosas no de deportes?
Oder möglicherweise sollte ich in der Sprache der Deutschen, die Sprache sprechen, die ich nicht weiß.
または多分私は日本人、私が知らない言語の言語で話すべきである。
デーブ、あなたおよびあなたの測定基準はたわごとの完全である。それらの年のそれぞれはヤンキーワールドシリーズに勝ち、Jeter はそれの大部分だった。私はNomah 上のJeter にあらゆる日を、し、そして取る。
and for those of you without access to http://babelfish.altavista.com/, that translated back into english is:
デーブ, you and your measurement standard is every わ is complete. Each one of those years won the Yankee world series, Jeter was the most of that. I do all days, in Jeter on Nomah, and take.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/, I thank you, Japan thanks you, and Jeter thanks you.
Maybe we always consider the MVP question in the wrong way. The choices make much more sense if you think of it as "The Most Valuable Possible Player for Any Team to Have." In that light, it is much more likely that ARod would have put any given team over the top last year than Jeter would have.
Did I mention that Ortiz got jobbed?
as the Japanese say, I do all days, in Jeter on A-Rod, and take.
Since it has come to my attention that some readers (and their mothers) were amused by Dewy's response, I'd just like to point out that while Dewy can throw all the sabermetrics in the world at us, he is ultimately defeated by the photo attached to this post. And that's because this photo captures the exact moment in time that the Jeter vs Nomar argument was indisputably won by Yankee fans and Red Sox Nation unconditionally conceded that Jeter was better. The cuts on his face were from yet another unbelieveable dive into the stands for a pop fly where he crashed face first into the third row of seats, while Nomar sat sulking in the opposing dugout. I think every Red Sox fan I know conceded the following morning. But I shouldn't talk trash about Nomar. He's going to look great in pinstripes, shagging Big Papi's fly balls in centerfield.
(and yes, I know what I just said)
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