I'm a Yankees fan. I've defended it. I've had random people walk up to me in the laundromat and tell me they hate the shirt I'm wearing. More on the defense of the Yankees later. More on the shortstop of the Yankees right now. Derek Jeter now is to Derek Jeter's Career as Michael Jordan's second comeback is to Jordan's Career.
In 2010 we saw Jeter bat career low numbers. Some thought that it was due to Alex Rodriguez's extended stay on the DL and the day to day grind on Jeter not being able to take days off. However, Jeter's slump has continued into this season. He was improving before his stint on the DL, from which he took longer than expected to recover, but is still batting 56 points below his career average. His range in the field has also greatly decreased. Recent news reports on his replacements (Chavez and Nunez) lament them not having the fielding percentage Jeter does. Jeter does not make errors. However, now he doesn't get to the balls he used to. He doesn't have as many fielding opportunities.
Jeter is 37. Not even Michael was winning championships at 37. The 97-98 season, MJ's last dominant one, he turned 35. Baseball has a longer season with more games than basketball, fewer days off, and more time spent in awkward positions that wears on a body. If Jeter were a football player not named Favre, he'd have retired by now. He's in his 16th season. He recovered from a 2008 campaign during which he was declared "done." I don't see him doing that after 2010.
This is where we see if Jeter will be selfishly prolonging a career at the expense of his team and his legacy, similarly to MJ with the Wizards. To be fair to MJ, he didn't drag the Wizards down, they narrowly missed the playoffs in his final season and he was the main reason that it was "narrowly" instead of "sure fire lottery winners." There are a few options for Jeter. 1. He'll play out the rest of his three-year, $51 million deal at shortstop and Cano and Rodriguez will have to cover for him in the field as we watch him slide from lead-off hitter to the eventual 8 or 9 hole. 2. Move Jeter to third, where he doesn't need to have the range in the field, and move Rodriguez back to his natural shortstop position and see if he has the range he, or Jeter, once had. This would still mean watching Jeter's offensive numbers plummet. 3. Move Jeter to the DH position to finish out his next two years. The wear of no longer being in the field may spark his numbers again. This scenario hopes that he doesn't go the way of fellow "Core Four" member Posada. In moving Jeter to DH, that opens up fielding options for the Yankees. They could move Rodriguez to shortstop and then get either of their two promising youngsters, Eduardo Nunez or Ramiro Pena at bats and fielding time. For Jeter's trip to the DL, the Yankees also had Ramirez play some time at shortstop. He doesn't seem to be with the team anymore and would only be a temporary solution, being only a couple years younger than Jeter. Pena and Nunez are in their mid-twenties. They would be inexperienced and have shown to be a little mistake prone, but the rest of the veteran infield would be able to calm them down and really give them some good experience. 4. Move Jeter to DH and leave Rodriguez at third and let Nunez or Pena play shortstop. This has most of the same advantages as above with the exception that the widest range position in the infield would be fairly inexperienced. If anyone has a team that could absorb a too new or too old shortstop and play around him, it is the Yankees. Which shortstop it will be in the next three years remains to be seen.
And yes, I refuse to call him "A-Rod."
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