Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Jeff Lichtman</b><p>And finally, Jeter for his career has a .307 batting average and a .413 OBP when hitting with 2 out and men in scoring position. ARod is hitting .270 with a .394 OBP in the same situation for his career. In contrast, David Ortiz, the greatest clutch hitter in baseball is hitting .273 and has a .397 OBP in his career with men in scoring position and 2 out.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>jay behrens</b><p>The truth of stats is that 27-32 are peak performance years. Jeter is on the down side of his career and will not be posting similar numbers until the day he retires, unless he finds the miracle that Bonds found. HRs won't taper off too badly, but SBs will decline very rapidly. Then there is the chance that some freak accdent may occur, ala Puckett getting beaned. IF he stays healthy, I'd be very surpised to see him end his career with 300 HRs and 400 SBs, even if he plays for 10 more years he needs to average 11 HRs and 18 SBs to reach those marks. For a player of his type, the SBs are pretty much out of reach and he may need all 10 years to get the HRs.<br /><br />Jay<br><br>I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Rhett Yeakley</b><p>Jeff, if you are trying to respond to my comments I don't think you are actually reading them. I never said he was marginally good or anything like that. I also stated in an earlier post that NY press was involved in blasting Arod, I still think it was rediculous for anybody to be blasting him like they did. Projecting stats 7 years into the future is silly, and I will never do that for any player, people did the same thing for Griffey in 1999 and that hasn't turned out to be true at all. Pujols is incredibly dominant (Jeter has never put up Pujols numbers, and never will because thay are 2 totally different types of players.) You keep getting hung up on me not wanting to call Jeter great, so what, in my opinion he is a very good ballplayer, not yet worthy of being called great. <br /><br />Jay, I also would take Jeter on my team before I took Ripken.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Jeff Lichtman</b><p>Rhett, which of the 3000 hit players who weren't caught taking steroids would you considser not to be great?

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Greg Ecklund</b><p>To say A-Rod chokes in October isn't borne out by the numbers - he had a lousy division series again the Angels last year, but his career postseason batting average is .305. Jeter edges him out slighly in that category with a .307 average, but he also has four times the postseason at bats as A-Rod does. When you have that amount of at bats and highlight plays in October people will tend to remember the great moments and gloss over the lousy performances.<br /><br />In 1998, Jeter hit .200 in the ALCS against Cleveland, .118 in the 2001 ALCS against Seattle and .148 against Arizona in the 2001 World Series. He also hit .233 and .200 against Boston in the ALCS of 2003 and 2004, respectively. If A-Rod has a series like any of those this year he might be run out of town, while if Jeter has one it will be talked about for a while and forgotten come next season. Certainly A-Rod's demeanor when compared to Jeter's is a factor in how they are treated, but I don't think it is entirely fair.<br /><br />Give A-Rod, or most any other great player, the number of postseason at bats that Jeter has and I would bet he would produce roughly the same number of great moments that Jeter has.<br /><br />I'm not saying Jeter isn't a great player and I would take him one of my teams any day. If he retired today he would still be a Hall of Famer without a doubt, especially when you stack him up against the others already in.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>jay behrens</b><p>I'd say Boggs is the weakest of the 3000 hit club. Not much of a fielder and had no speed. All the other members were more than just hitters. Jeter would be among the bottom 5 in the club.<br /><br />Jay<br><br>I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Dan Koteles</b><p>Mr Peabody. All the Yanks, uh, nevermind.<br /><br />Boughten and forgotten !

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Jay</b><p>Jay--I would rank Jeter ahead of these members of the 3000 hit club:Yaz, Molitor, Ripken, Yount, Winfield, Brock, Palmeiro and Boggs.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Jeff Lichtman</b><p>What about Carew?

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Brian H (misunderestimated)</b><p>... on a team of great players. He may in fact be the 2nd best SS on his own team to the much maligned AROD. AROD lacks Jeter's sterling winner's rep but he is also statistically about 2 standard deviations above Jeter and was a gold glove calliber SS before he switched to 3B when he arrived in the Bronx. By the end of his career, AROD will be recognized as easily the greatest 3b ever. Schmidt will have more gold gloves but Arod will annihiliate him in every offensive category (including HRs)<br /><br />Historically, I think of Jeter as something of a combination of Rizutto and Yogi Berra, two other big winner's whose greatness extended well-beyond the boxscore. <br />Berra to me is more valuable, he played the most valuable everyday position and won more than Jeter (so far). Yogi's 10 world series rings is tops of all time. Rizutto was also a winner although I think he was a lesser player than Jeter. Scooter was on the right team at the right time, and benefitted from who he played with: DiMaggio (at first) and then Berra, Mantle, Ford etc., while under the stellar management of Casey Stengel for many of those years. Scooter has 8 rings, twice as many as Jeter.<br /><br />Jeter has played with many HOFers and solid HOF candidates as well: Clemens, Boggs (on his way out), Rivera, AROD, Soriano (he looks like an eventual HOFer right now), Giambi (I bet the writers who love this guy don't hold his steroids against him), Mussina and Randy Johnson. And there are others. Also, he plays for a pretty good manager too -- future HOFer Joe Torre.<br /><br />When he finishes Jeter will clearly be the Yankee's greatest SS but he will have trouble cracking the top 3-4 of SS's in general. Statistically, he will never approach Wagner -- who is still regarded by many as the greatest all around player... ever at any position. I'm not certain he will end up better than Arky Vaughan (check the numbers) or 2-time MVPs at SS Ernie Banks and Cal Ripken, either.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Rhett- $14 million total payroll for players for the Marlins??? That's incredible. That's less than half what USC's players receive each year.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Jay</b><p>Brian--I have to disagree with you about Vaughan and Ripken. First, Vaughan finished his career in 1946 but was only inducted into the HOF in 1985. He had decent stats but obviously not many of his contemporaries thought of him as a HOFer. We've all seen Ripken play and he isn't close to the player Jeter is. He showed up every day. Other than that he is a marginal HOFer at best.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Greg Ecklund</b><p>There really is nothing that makes Phil Rizzuto a "winner" other than the luck in playing for the right team at the right time - had he played for a marginal team or for a bottom feeder of the time like the Browns or Athletics he would barely be remembered today. <br /><br />You could take most any shortstop and put them on the 1941-56 Yankees and they would have been on just as many World Series winners as Rizzuto. What would make a guy like Rizzuto a winner and someone like Billy Rogell, Woody English, or Marty Marion not one other than Rizzuto's sheer luck of arriving on the scene during the start of a long stretch of Yankee dominance?

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>warshawlaw</b><p>Jay: How is winning 5 batting championships and having 200 hits 7 times weak? The most similar careers per baseball-reference are: <br /><br /> 1. Rod Carew (881) *<br /> 2. Tony Gwynn (851)<br /> 3. Paul Waner (828) *<br /> 4. Sam Rice (807) *<br /> 5. Zack Wheat (802) *<br /> 6. Frankie Frisch (798) *<br /> 7. Roberto Alomar (778)<br /> 8. Tim Raines (768)<br /> 9. Jimmy Ryan (765)<br /> 10. Charlie Gehringer (757) *<br /><br />Not exactly weak company to keep. Let's not also forget that Boggs languished in the minors for at least a couple of seasons beyond his time. Had he come up earlier, he would not have had to hang on for an extra few seasons to get to 3000 hits and we'd be looking at a guy around .335 instead of .328 (which is nothing to sneeze at either). <br /><br />Winfield's on base % and average (.283, .353) are considerably lower than Boggs's (.328, .415). Even slugging % (Boggs .443; Winfield .475) isn't that far apart. Take away the 3000 hits from longevity (took him nearly 2000 more at bats and several more years than Boggs to get there) and he isn't a HOFer. Well, he did top 30 homers twice...<br /><br />Brian: Banks's career is about half playing first base. As a shortstop he was adequate. <br /><br />Greg: I agree that Rizzuto has enjoyed a "halo effect" from being a Yankee; so did Pee Wee Reese from being a Dodger. I think Marty Marion is underrated but really was a cut below the other two. Vaughn was a terrific player; read Bill James's analysis of his career. <br /><br />WE at the Warshaw Group will take Boggs over Winfield any day. Don't hate us because we're pompous <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>jay behrens</b><p>Adam, among the 3k club he is the weakest player there. Not neccessarily the weakest hitter. Boggs offered nothing to his team other than his BA. He was a marginal fielder and had no speed. Essentially, he was a one tol player and that one tol was exceptional enough to keep him in theleague a long time. Winfield was a decent fielder and had decent speed. Basically, Winfield was a 5 tool players. I'll take that over Boggs any day.<br /><br />Jay<br><br>I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>jay wolt</b><p>Although I always liked Boggs...<br />I agree w/ Jay that Winfield was a far superior player.<br />W/ superior speed (as Jay stated) and power.<br />Winfield had 465 HR's, Boggs 118<br />Winfield had 88 triples, Boggs 61<br />Winfield scored 1669 runs, Boggs 1513<br />Winfiled stole 223 bases, Boggs 24

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>jay wolt</b><p>Also...Winfield had 7 gold gloves, Boggsie 2

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>paulstratton</b><p>I always thought of Winfield as a guy who underperformed. He did accumulate some nice career numbers but never really had any monster seasons. He hit .208 with 2 hr's and 9 rbi's in 26 career postseason games. Post season success matters.<br /><br />

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>jay wolt</b><p>"Post season success matters"<br />True!<br />But Boggs wasn't that spectacular either, <br />In 9 post season series, he hit .273<br />over 50 points lower then his career reg season mark.<br /><br />And if you are going to give props on Post Season work.<br />Then Jeter's value is higher. This is his 11th year<br />and all 11 years he's been in the post season. He's nicknamed<br />"Mr November" as well.<br />Granted Steinbrenner spends a fortune each year. But Steinbrenner<br />did this as well before Jeter came up and has never had 11 straight<br />post season visits.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>paulstratton</b><p>Of course Ty Cobb hit over .100 points less than his career average in 17 career postseason games so...<br /><br />I think today's culture places more of an emphasis on winning than in the pre-war days and that it's much harder to win now than it was in the past.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Bob</b><p>Since Lloyd was commonly referred to as the "Black Honus Wagner," I'd have to take him over Jeter. When asked about this comparison, Wagner replied it was a real compliment to be compared to Lloyd.

Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.
 

Posted By: <b>Brian H (misunderestimated)</b><p>I think what "makes Jeter Jeter" is not really his individual stats but his winning. Although he will have to spend sopme more time excelling to warrant fair statistical comparion with the 3000 hit crew (who he will probably join at some point), his presence at the center of the Yankees' juggernaut the past 10+ years is what makes him great.<br /><br />That's why I compare him to Rizutto (favorably) and Berra (less favorably). He was and is more essential to the Yankees that Rizutto was except (perhaps) for Scooter's MVP season. Jeter is not generally as integral to Yankees' dynasty from the late 40's to the early 60's as Berra.<br /><br />I also mentioned some of the other top SS in major league history and where I think Jeter will stand in that pecking order by the ned of his career. Wagner (and surely Pop Lloyd in the Negro Leagues) I think are out of Jeter's league. Both are among the best, ever at any position. Banks, Arky Vaughan and Ripken I think are who he will ultimately be evaluated against.<br />Banks played most of his career at 1B but his MVP season were as a shortstop, Ripken won MVPs while he was playing all of those games and hit for power (and probably fielded) much better than Jeter. Vaughan is perhaps statistically even more impressive than Ripken. His lifetime average was .318, he never struck out and he walked alot. The low strikeout numbers and high OBA were only recently recognized as especially meaningful Stats with the advent of SABR, and the writings of Bill James (who has Vaughan as the #2 SS of all-time in his Historical Abstract) And, of course, Arky didn't play in New York which made him a lesser name during and right after his career.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/v/vaughar01.shtml" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.baseball-reference.com/v/vaughar01.shtml</a><br /><br />Although, as Jay notes, he apparently was not held in such great esteem by the writers since his inducution into Cooperstown was not immediate. However, Vaughan missed some crucial years due to WWII and passed away very young (actually before he was even eligible for the HOF) which might also have dimmed his election prospects. The writers missed alot of great players and did not always elect even the most obvious great players on their first ballot (Joe DiMaggio and Jimmy Foxx, who were contemporaries of Vaughan, for example).