So coming back to this, I might change my vote to Ripken, he was a better fielder than I thought, and Jeter was worse. Fangraphs has Ripken as a top 5 fielder for those we have stats on and Jeter not surprisingly is on of the worst ever. My top 5: Wagner (by a mile) Arod, Banks, Cronin. Yount. I would put Jeter in the next group with Ripken, Larkin, I left out Vaughan, Davis and Dahlen because I don't know enough about them. Hanley, Reyes and Tulo don't have enough PA to be on the list in my mind.
Remember I am not debating that Jeter is the best SS, just overall better than Ripken Jr. Thats why I made this thread and you guys have done great to debate both ways. I guess it really is a toss up.
How can you put Yount and Banks on that list? Practically half of Yount's PAs came when he was playing somewhere besides SS. (He moved off the position at 29.) Banks spent even less of his career at the position (Only 42% of his PAs were while playing SS.) A-Rod has fewer PAs than Yount at SS, and is quickly approaching the similar problem of having spent the bulk of his career at another position, but that might be somewhat made up for by the fact that he wasn't just a great hitting SS; he had some prolific seasons and was on pace to be one of the greatest hitters of all-time, period. Or, for more perspective, you said you left Reyes and Hanley off that list because they were lacking PAs. Well, Reyes already has more PAs at SS than Banks did. Hanley will probably pass him next season, Tulowitzki in two seasons.
A fair point, I didn't really analyze the SS breakdown of their PAs, if you take those 2 out then I guess Jeter is probably right around the 5 hole, I fully expect Tulo to pass him and Hanley as well assuming he stays at SS. Jeter is a weird guy to look at against other SS, most other SS like him in the past got moved to other positions, but he was allowed to stay at SS despite not really being an MLB quality defender there. So his O numbers look really good for the position when if he was playing the most logical position for him (OF) he would be much lower on the lists.
I'm fully on board the Jeter Is A Shitty Defender bandwagon, but I think that gets overblown a bit, too, both in terms of the value to the team, and in terms of how much weight should be given to the defensive metrics. Hanley Ramirez is an atrocious defender. But he has so much more value as a SS. Mike Piazza was the worst catcher I've ever seen, but his value came from having a productive bat at a position where there weren't many great bats.
I agree to an extent, early in Jeter's career it was less significant as they hid him by using a 3b and 2B with good range, but the Jeter/Arod thing was a terrible move, you took a great SS and made him into a subpar 3b while leaving a bad SS at SS. Jeter offsets his terrible defending with a great bat which gives him very good overall value, but is also why it is hard to consider him among the best ever when those guys hit and fielded their position. If Arod wasn't in NY playing Jeter at SS is the right move, it lowers his v alue as an alltime great, but is still a positive overall contribution. The question though is.... if you moved him early in his career to RF for example, does he put on more muscle and become a better hitter? Jeter really is a fascinating debate, because he was until Hanley basically unique, a longterm SS who can't play the position, but hits far better than the average SS.
I agree that - in a vacuum - A-Rod should have been the SS. As for the value of the defensive metrics, here's a good example: Ripken is said to have averaged +10 runs saved above average per season. Jeter is said to have averaged -8 runs (below average) per season. Is an 18 run swing significant over the course of a season? Well, just in terms of the variability of this metric alone, Jeter has been as high as +4 (age 30 and 35) and as low as -21 (age 26). Ripken has been has high as +21 (age 34) and as low as -5 (age 27). So there's a lot of volatility there, and a bit of a sample size issue... never mind that this is runs saved above/below average, which means he's being compared to his peers. As far as I know, this isn't corrected for era. Just to be clear, I'm by no means arguing that Jeter is better than Ripken, defensively. Ripken was definitely a better fielder. I just don't know how much weight I'd give that in the comparison, or how much I trust those stats in terms of their predictive value, given the spread on them. They definitely tell us something, but I think people tend to read too much into them in some cases. Your use of these metrics would be one example of that. Here's a good read for anyone who's interested: Fangraphs.com's UZR Primer - This was written by the guy who designed the metric. In particular: Does UZR Tell Us What Happened on the Field? Sample Size and Reliability Consistency from Year to Year ETA: I also meant to add that I think it's tough to say you fully expect so-and-so to pass Jeter. Part of what makes Jeter so rare is that he's stuck at the position, for better or worse. Never mind moving off the position because of age... even the fact that Jeter has consistently been an above average hitter for almost fifteen years is a rare thing in this game. Injuries happen. Age-related decline strikes. Freak slumps, loss of competitive fire, etc. I wouldn't bet on anyone accomplishing what Jeter has accomplished, not because I don't think there are more talented people out there... just that what he's done is so rarely done. It's not a good bet. It's not quite in the same sphere, but think of Dimaggio's hitting streak. Have there been other more talented players in the game? I think so. But for whatever reason, he put together a streak that will probably remain one of the toughest to top for a long time. Consistency might not be flashy, or even predictable or due to anything other than chance... but it does pile up and make it harder for others to top.
Playoffs matter to me. Ripken: 28 Games (1 Championship) 110 At bats. Jeter: 147 Games (5 Championships) 599 At bats. What makes Jeter get the edge is his playoff numbers and clutch hits, plus championships. You guys can talk about if he was on the Royals or some other loser team, but the fact is he was not. He is the captain of the New York Yankees.
If you're comparing two players, why would you give so much weight to something that obviously relies tremendously on the player's teammates? Baseball is one of the few sports where the individual's achievements are so clearly their own. Jeter made it to the postseason quite often. Is that because he was better than Ripken? Or because the other 24 guys on Jeter's team were better than the 24 other guys on Ripken's team? To choose to count that seems... well... kind of silly, at best. Willfully obtuse at worst. As I pointed out before, Jeter's playoff numbers are almost exactly in line with his regular season numbers (which you'd expect), and his clutch stats are actually a little worse than his normal stats. Just because he's had a lot of clutch chances and come through in some of them doesn't mean he's "better" somehow. It just means he's had a lot of those opportunities. I don't know how that argument is supposed to give one player an edge over another, given that it relies on the actions of others.
That is a terrible argument, playing in more postseason games is 100% based on the team he played for, a single player has so little impact on his team's playoff chances that it is essentially neglibile. In fact, you could argue postseason stats favor Ripken Career Postseason stats: Player Avg. OBP. SLG OPS Jeter 309 .377 .472 .850 Ripken 336 .411 .455 .866 So Jeter plays slightly better in the postseason than regular, .018 OPS Ripken played significantly better than Regular season, .078 OPS about a 10% jump.
No, my point is they are so close otherwise, the playoff production and championships should give Jeter the edge if you had to choose one.
Why? The team matters. There's no getting around it. It matters greatly that Jeter plays for the Yankees. If drafted by the Pirates or Royals and never traded he would not have five WS rings.
If you're comparing two players and it's so close you can't otherwise tell, just call it a tie. Using playoff appearances as an argument is like deciding which pig wins the blue ribbon at the county fair based on what the farmers' chickens looked like.
It's fair to argue # of playoff appearances when comparing two NBA players, but it is silly when comparing baseball players.
Yeah, that's why I said before that baseball is one of the few sports where the players' achievements are (almost) entirely their own.
6 to 6 in voting. What about pressure to perform well in New York? That should give Jeter a bit of an edge with how well he has performed. Ripken was mostly on losing Orioles teams except the beginning of his career.
It's a team game. How is it Ripken's fault that he played on shittier teams than Jeter did? It was also a different era back then. Jeter's entire career has come in the Wild Card era. For the bulk of Ripken's career, the team had to win the division to get into the playoffs. Is Don Mattingly less of a player because the Yanks only made it into the playoffs in '95? Look, I'd give Jeter the edge, overall, but playoff appearances or supposed clutchiness have nothing to do with it.
See things like that cut both ways, Jeter may have had more pressure, but because he played on great teams surrounded by much better players, the argument could be made he got more good opportunities to hit. Also some would argue there is more pressure on a superstar when he has to carry the team's offense than when he is just one of a collection of good players. Honestly the only way to compare 2 players is on the numbers they put up offensively and defensively against the era they played in, Jeter and Ripken had different strengths and weaknesses, so it comes down to what you value more: Fielding, Average, power etc. The fact that each is better than the other in some categories is why this is a close comparison. But mythical intangibles or the performance of the rest of the team really tell you nothing about the player, they are just storylines in the press.
