Can’t wait for games, should be an exciting baseball season between the lines.

My main pint is that despite all of the griping, last season Jeter was still a productive player with his bat, especially given his position. So, more of the same–while not up to Jeterian standards–is actually not that bad at all.

Now, if his defense declines a bunch, then we have a different story. Still, most of the defensive stats show that Jeter has not been “murdering” the Yanks for years [21]: he has been below average and that’s about it (see Replacement Level Yankees good write up on Jeter). So the notion that he is getting worse and worse on defense does not seem to be accurate.

Overall, then, i agree with your final assessment. Jeter will be a highly overpaid but around average SS (offense and defense combined) this year and next. And the optimist in me says that we will see a slight bounce back on offense, so he will end up being an overall positive (by a bit).

2000 .330 .430 .505
2001 .248 .349 .349
2002 .250 .339 .394
2003 .324 .453 .412
2004 .280 .354 .394
2005 .236 .362 .425
2006 .311 .384 .424
2007 .319 .414 .500
2008 .250 .328 .329

Will his offense get that bad in ’09? I don’t know. In 2008, his RARP and VORP were both around +34 runs compared to a replacement level shortstop, but WARP1 had him at +21 runs overall; the numbers don’t work quite so nicely (neither VORP nor RARP are used to compute WARP1), but let’s say that’s a -10 on defense. His ’09 PECOTA card projects a weighted mean VORP of 25. A -10 on defense would make him worth a win and a half, so still on the plus side.

For right now, his ’10 projection is 20 VORP, ’11 is 13, and ’12 is 11. So, my guess is, he doesn’t start being a net negative until probably 2011. (Note, too, FWIW, that PECOTA projects Jeter to play only 99 games at SS in 2011.)

[21] I can’t speak for the rest of “Yankeeland”, but at the Banter at least, folks have been talking about Jeter’s bad defense for years.

Nice Wiffle ball field, but this is the king of the heap. Little Fenway is the site of the annual Travis Roy Foundation WIFFLE Ball Tournament, named for the Boston University hockey player injured and left paraplegic 11 seconds into his first shift of his first game at BU.

There is now a Little Wrigley abutting Little Fenway.

BTW, nice to see that Yankeeland is now aware of what the rest of the world has been aware of for years, namely that Derek “Past a Diving” Jeter has been murdering his team with his defensive play. The only problem I see with moving Jeter to center field is the question of whether or not he still hits well enough to justify an outfield slot.

That’s unlike most NY stars who faded. The media were the one to signal the end.

If they fail to make the post-season this year without an obvious injury excuse, I can certainly see the media finally covering the implications of a lackluster season from the Captain. The problem is he’ll always manage a .290 to .300 average so they’ll have to look deeper than the mediots typically look.

The other problem is the NY media is in love with him. They’ll look everyone else first. That’s unlike most NY stars who faded.

Now it’s Jeter.

I just can’t believe with that history the backup they’ll carry is Berroa. Just terrible management of the roster there, esp when a guy like Grudzielanek is still available. Awful, awful, awful. They could have easily matched the Indians package for DeRosa. Plus, what better way to light a fire under Cano’s ass than to bring in a vet to challenge him? It’s like Cashman thinks Torre is still managing the team.

We can debate what might happen to Jeter’s performance, and what should be done with him, but for now, its just a thought exercise. For better or for worse, barring significant injury, Jeter is going to play SS regularly for the Yanks until (at least) 2010.

And when he can’t play SS regularly anymore, if he stays with the Yanks, he’ll DH, because there is literally no where else to put him.