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Old 09-23-2006, 09:54 PM
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Default Who can you compare Derek Jeter going back to 1869.

Posted By: Greg Ecklund

As I said, voters TEND to vote for the same guys year after year - take a look at any list of Gold Glove winners by position and you'll see that award winners often go in streaks. Jeter won in 2004 and 2005, and it would not surprise me to see him win several more in a row until the next guy comes along to win four or five in a row.

No doubt the "catch" was a big factor in building the perception of Jeter as a good fielder - seeing the same play over and over on SportsCenter will be a factor in many people's perception whether they would admit it or not. Many people have nothing on which to base their opinions about fielding other than Baseball Tonight highlights or what they read in the paper, and many sportswriters aren't well versed in fielding statistics.

Here is an article about how John Dewan and Baseball info solutions charted every single ball put into play for three seasons and came up with a plus/minus rating for each player based on how he stacked up against the average player at his position.

Jeter ended up 30th at -64 over three seasons, with Michael Young (-73) the only regular shortstop who fared worse. Adam Everett of Houston had the best rating.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=newstatsmakedefenderslik&prov=tsn&type=lgns

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