I love Johnny D but would not resign him, unless he takes a one-year deal (unlikely)

Matsui can still mash it (and I told everyone many times, he needs to be resigned so I can see all the Yankee games on NHK here!)

Posada..why oh why did Cashman sign him to that deal????

If Jeter’s defense (as measured by UZR) reamins at the level it was last season and is this season to date, he can remain at SS. If his defense reverts to where it was from 2005-07 (about 40 runs below average over that span), then he shouldn’t.

The more difficult question is the term of his next contract.

My guess, and that’s all it is, is that it will come down to whether there is a clearly better alternative to Jeter available at SS at an appropriate cost. My suspicion is that it’s quite possible that Jeter gets to 3000 while still being an average or above SS, because SS are relatively poor hitters. It sucks to have an average SS, but it’s a lot better than having a below average outfielder.

Agreed. The issue becomes, AFTER next year (which is my timeline) when you are looking at a 37 year old ss, and it is a hard position to play and his numbers may be sliding. This gets political, then … they let Bernie become a part-timer (sort of, Torre resisted) and then let him go. It’ll be tricky to do that with DJ nearing 3000, so the LF option (some have said DH, I think DH requires much more pop and Jorge may be there), with finding/producing/cloning a good ss may kick in. Jeter could be, sort of, like Damon in left, two years from now.

Or not. Long way off.

In 08 Jeter had the highest batting win shares of any AL shortstop. As an outfielder, he wouldn’t even have been in the top 20! Jeter’s offense is so exceptional for a SS that, for example, cumulatively, across the 06, 07, 08 seasons, Jeter had the highest win shares of any shortstop despite his defense.

So, then you say, but his defense is so BAD. Well, it turns out not to matter very much:

Because of the relatively narrow distribution of defensive skills (in win shares) versus offensive skills, his bad defense makes up a relatively small weight versus his position (for example, combining the 06, 07, and 08 seasons, the best defense versus the worst defense was only a difference of about 5 win shares, while the best offense versus the worst offense is about 20 win shares).

Clearly, getting a SS with higher total win shares that Jeter at SS is not possible, while it’s probably relatively easy to get an OF with higher winshares than Jeter would have in the outfield. As I mentioned above, Jeter wouldn’t even be in the top 20 offensive win shares in the outfield. Pathetic!

Most of the stats here (all from this site): http://tinyurl.com/nvbsnx

thanks … I coined that one last night …

2-1 BoSox …. Varitek has gone deep twice

I do agree that the odds are good our FA play in this off-season will be a serious OF bat. Lots of money coming off the books and pitching is set, with any luck. Jeter goes one more year (sorry!) at ss. I do agree that one way to go is steer him to LF after that, which affects what we do this off-season with the OF. Say, another year of Damon, then Jeter? And what we sign is a major RF bat, making Swisher our 4th OF. I agree he is best as a 350-400 at-bat role player. Nady may be, as well, actually. I think that was the idea for this year.

Me, I’m becoming, slowly, a Melky believer. Good field, pretty decent stick, that’s okay for CF. I wouldn’t rush to not-believe this spring. Oh, and just read that Bruney is likely to be okay, can resume his drills.

Does someone know what Robertson’s pitches are? He was at 90, just, last night, with really nice location, but it is hard to live, as a righty, with a pretty flat 90 mph fastball. For some reason I thought he was faster. Gets a lot of Ks in AAA. But he isn’t throwing what, say, Delcarmon throws, or Bruney, even.

I still think they’ll be okay in the slugging dept. We’ll see how Crawford holds up in OBP this year.

Exactly. I see no reason that can’t continue for a year or two.

I think Johnny is taking full advantage of the new Stadium:

Split AB H 2B 3B HR BA OBP SLG OPS
Home 87 17 4 0 7 .322 .410 .609 1.019
Away 92 26 7 2 3 .283 .337 .500 .837

[38] Nady is an OK defender, and LF is pretty much the bottom of the defensive spectrum, so even if he was horrifically bad, how much would that matter? Further, next year’s staff is filled with 4 strikeout pitchers (CC, AJ, Joba, Hughes) and one groundballer (Wang). LF defense is not a big concern.

I agree that Nady’s OBP is sub-optimal, but the age difference (5 years) between he and Damon is too great to ignore, and outweighs the OBP issue for me. I’m not saying Nady should be their #1 priority – I think Dunn should be – but he’s not a bad fallback position.

And, for me, as long as OPS doesn’t account for the greater weight that OBP has over SLG in terms of scoring runs, I wouldn’t worry about what someone is likely to OPS next year. What would worry me about Crawford is that his .332 career OBP is even lower than Nady’s, and that makes him a terrible leadoff hitter candidate. The OBP is way up this year (.374), as is his walk rate, but Crawford is in his age-27 season.

Note too that Crawford has a club option for 2010 in his contract, and I’ll bet TB exercises it.