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Yes, Jeter was in the right place at the right time. There was no Ozzie Smith, Robin Yount, or Cal Ripken in front of him. In '95, the year before Jeter became a full-time player, the Yankees marched a 33 year old Tony Fernandez out to shortstop. Fernandez, who was an outstanding shortstop in his prime, was no longer that player. In the only season he spent with the Yankees, he hit .245 with a .688 OPS in 108 games.
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This makes it sound as if Tony Fernandez was the Yankees' only option at short. Tony Fernandez was a place-filler, as it made no sense for the Yankees to go out and get a better shortstop because they had Derek Jeter a year away from the majors.
To disregard Jeter because he had a long career, or because he played on the Yankees, to me, is ludicrous. He had 200 hits 8 times in his career, and 190+ hits three more. That's quite a feat regardless of how many at bats he had. His lifetime OBP was .379 - an impressive number that puts him ahead of Pete Rose, despite Rose having 800 more hits. While he never won an MVP, that's an arbitrary award that, to me, means nothing - he should have won it in 2006 and could have won it in 1998 and 2009. It's like saying Ted Williams wasn't any good because he never won a World Series.
There's no question that Jeter belongs in the list of all-time greats, and all-time great shortstops as well.
And there's also no question that, steroids or not, obnoxious personality or not, and choking in the postseason or not, Alex Rodriguez had better numbers than all of them but one. As such, if I were to put together such a list, it would probably look like this:
1. Honus Wagner
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Pop Lloyd
4. Jeter/Yount (virtually interchangeable in my mind)
6. Ernie Banks
7. Arky Vaughn
8. Joe Cronin
9. Cal Ripken
10. 10 is tough, but I probably put George Davis there.
Just underneath I would have Bill Dahlen, Luke Appling, Barry Larkin and Alan Trammell.
Fun discussion, made me look up a whole bunch of shortstops while I should be working.
-Al