Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
August 08, 2003
Jeter's Disbelief

Darren Viola points out this article by Eli Saslow of the Newark Star-Ledger. It's about math professor Michael Hoban and his quest to devise a formula that rated shortstops. What surprised Hoban was that his formula rated Jeter the worst defender:

Desperate to discover the worst shortstop in major league baseball, Hoban spent day after day perfecting a complicated equation. He lived behind a 2,696-page baseball statistics guide, typing out numbers until his fingers hurt and pondering decimal points until his head spun.

Now, he had come just a few keystrokes away from unveiling the worst fielding shortstop in the game. He punched the last key:

Derek Jeter.

Wait. That couldn't be right. Hoban reevaluated statistics and double-checked his equation and plugged in more numbers and punched the key again. Still Jeter.

Uh-oh.

"I was surprised, very surprised," Hoban said recently."I didn't think I'd see his name at the bottom of the list, but it's there. And these numbers don't lie."

Jeter doesn't believe it.
"I'm the worst?" Jeter said when confronted with the numbers. "I don't think I would say that. But I couldn't really care less what some mathematical equation comes out with."

Later, Jeter makes an intelligent argument:

"How to you rank defensive shortstops?" Jeter said. "I don't see how a formula can evaluate how somebody plays.

"You get a strikeout pitcher on the mound as opposed to a ground-ball pitcher, it's going to affect the statistics you use to evaluate defense. So I don't really think you can."

Now, Jeter has a point with the strikeouts. And from the way the article describes the formula, I don't trust it that much myself. For example, the most heavily weighted factor is fielding percentage, and frankly, MLB shortstop fielding percentages are not all that different. What gets Jeter in the formula is his range, and range will be effected by the handedness of the pitchers on your team and their propensity for strikeouts.

But these have been adjusted for. In looking at this article, I wondered if Hoban had read Win Shares. That formula does take into account all of the things Jeter was refering to in his point about strikeouts. Here's Jeter's win shares per 162 games by year:

Derek JeterDefensive Win Shares per 162 Games
19956.06
19967.41
19977.34
19986.69
19994.86
20003.00
20016.50
20024.82

So Jeter has been declining, but it hasn't been as steady as Hoban says. What is clear is that if you look at ws/162 over the last five seasons (1998-2002), Jeter is the worst regular shortstop (minimum 500 games at shortstop):

Shortstops, 1998-2003 (min 500 games)Total WSPer 162 Games
Rey Sanchez 28.0 9.8
Rey Ordonez 35.3 9.6
Neifi Perez 41.2 9.2
Orlando Cabrera 31.4 9.1
Alex S. Gonzalez 32.2 8.5
Mike Bordick 31.3 8.4
Cristian Guzman 24.4 7.6
Royce Clayton 29.1 7.6
Nomar Garciaparra 26.4 7.5
Rich Aurilia 29.8 7.5
Miguel Tejada 33.4 7.4
Alex Rodriguez 33.3 7.4
Omar Vizquel 31.9 7.2
Barry Larkin 22.8 6.8
Jose Hernandez 19.4 6.7
Deivi Cruz 25.8 6.4
Edgar Renteria 26.5 6.3
Derek Jeter 23.7 5.2

Jeter is the worst regular shortstop in terms of defense over the last five years. And it's not just that he's at the bottom; he's way below the level that keeps shortstops playing. Long time readers of this site know that I've pointed out specific plays where I've seen the ball come off the bat, expected an out, and Jeter doesn't get to it. I have advocated moving Jeter to another position. His lack of defense (and Soriano's, for that matter) cost the Yankees against the Angels last year. Most of the time it doesn't matter because he makes up for his defense with his bat. But against a team that puts the ball in play a lot, I don't want Jeter playing shortstop.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:42 AM | Defense | TrackBack (0)