Hanley Ramirez seems to have taken a huge step forward defensively.

It was the only thing missing in his game.  While I’d need to see him repeat it, if he’s now an average defender he’s going to be in contention for best player in baseball.

Yeah, Jeter’s year looked bad a month or two ago, but I noticed even then that there weren’t many players doing much at the position this year.

Maybe I have missed it in previous discussions, but what does everyone think of the apparent turn-around in Jeter’s defense? Defensive metrics seem to swing pretty wildly from year to year (David Wright has swung from 2nd worst to best in many defensive metrics form one year to the next, as has Jeter on more than one occasion). But does anyone really feel that Jeter has somehow turned things around at age 34? That would seem a little unlikely to me. Maybe Girardi and coaching changes made a difference in positioning? But then why are Cano’s defensive numbers so awful this year?

Small side note - the ex-AG since heading to DC: .407/.484/.667 in 31 PAs. I know, 31 PAs, but still.

Maybe I have missed it in previous discussions, but what does everyone think of the apparent turn-around in Jeter’s defense? Defensive metrics seem to swing pretty wildly from year to year (David Wright has swung from 2nd worst to best in many defensive metrics form one year to the next, as has Jeter on more than one occasion)

I think that defensive metrics still don’t have a firm grasp on (1) positioning, (2) the type of ball park you play in (turf, grass) and (3) how lousy your pitchers are.

That being said, if you look at a player’s defensive metrics and they are good, bad or ugly, you have to at least try to rectify that with some explanation.

TO be clear—I meant to say that Jeter has never swung to BEST in zone rating or anything like that, but he has had swings of 20 or more runs from one year to the next.

61 runs above replacement level?  Holy moly that’s awesome.  I seem to remember reading this season that people were still down on his defense.  Prejudice from his previous seasons?

“That being said, if you look at a player’s defensive metrics and they are good, bad or ugly, you have to at least try to rectify that with some explanation. “

Yeah, I don’t really know how I feel about that, though. It seems like every year there are 4 or 5 guys at every position that have some crazy and hard to reconcile swing in ZR or rZR and everyone gets caught up trying to explain it all. Then the next year, the same guy goes back to what he was doing previously and everyone says he has regressed. I sort of feel that the defensive stats are still to unreliable to really take into account when evaluating a player’s overall value. I am not saying you can’t look at it, but counting those stats equally with the much more reliable and quantifiable hitting stats can be misleading. If those stats are even somewhat arbitrary, then Jose Reyes might be 15 runs better than Jimmy Rollins.

I mean, I’m not rooting for Reyes, but last year he was plus 12 or something like that and Rollins was in the red. Now that is reversed, despite the fact that both guys have been healthy all year and little has changed (except the firing of Willie).

Maybe I have missed it in previous discussions, but what does everyone think of the apparent turn-around in Jeter’s defense? Defensive metrics seem to swing pretty wildly from year to year (David Wright has swung from 2nd worst to best in many defensive metrics form one year to the next, as has Jeter on more than one occasion). But does anyone really feel that Jeter has somehow turned things around at age 34? That would seem a little unlikely to me.

I think we get too hung up on using the results of a single season as our assessment of a player’s true talent, on both offense and defense.  Here’s a look at Jeter’s year by year zone rating runs saved above average for every full season.

TT is a rolling weighted average of the prior 3 year’s zone ratings.  The -1/+1 Std is just the range of defensive runs saved we’d expect to see within one sigma of Jeter’s estimated TT (estimated true talent).  As you can see, we have generally seen Jeter’s defense fall within one standard deviation of his estimated true talent, with the exceptions of 2004, where he was better, and 2007, where he was worse.

2007 is looking more and more like an injury-related fluke.  Jeter’s better than last year because he’s healthier, not because he necessarily improved himself. 

You are right though, there are swings in year to year performance even in healthy players.  That could be due to many factors, including positioning, a worse performance by the pitchers (harder to field chances, more line drives), or just a year of slumping.  When we’re talking about the difference between major league fielders, what seems like a big swing (20 runs) is the equivalent of a play not made every 5 games.

One other thing to keep in mind is the basis of comparison.  If it’s against league average in the given season, a change in talent could make a player look worse.  Case in point would be Alex Rodriguez.  His zone rating of .790 this year is higher than he’s ever been at 3B, but the AL 3B ZR is up by a lot overall, so he looks worse relative to the league even though he’s playing better relative to himself.  He’s -1 this year, but would be +6 with the same ZR last year.

Yeah, I don’t really know how I feel about that, though.

Well, it goes back to what the statistics means. Just like stocks - it’s what the player has done, and isn’t a guarantee of what he’ll do in the future.

There’s a pretty good chance that Jeter’s shitty ZR from last year was because he was playing through some pain. At the same time, there was a chance that he just fell off the map, which basically caused all of us to be worried that we’d be looking at him dive at balls up the middle for the next 5 years.

There was a change in the manager and coaching staff - so maybe Jeter has been positioned differently? 

Also, Jeter reportedly change up his offseason workout to routine to get a little more lateral quickness. Maybe that’s helping him out a lot this season?

I guess my point is that this list is a nice tool to look to see what the Yankees have gotten out of their SS in 2008 thus far.  So you take these numbers, and his numbers through is career, his age, and the things we just mentioned, and suddenly it’s not looking like we need to move Jeter to LF/RF/1B in 2009, which a lot of folks around here were saying (including myself) as recently as this past offseason in the wake of that horrible defensive year he had in 2007.

Thanks j and SG—I think we are generally in agreement here. Of course, there are going to be swings in a players stats in every category, no matter what. All I am saying is that players almost never veer from the 2nd worst offensive player at their position to the best, but defensively it happens at least a bit more than occasionally, which leads me to believe that there is something a little fishy in the stats that hasn’t been worked out yet.

I guess it is also due to the fact that there is less of a gap between the best and worst defensive players than there is between the best and worst offensive players. We aren’t shocked when A-Rod drives in 20 more or less runs from one year to the next, but if his defensive runs swings by 20 it seems shocking because that can take you from above average to dead last in the league in one year. 

But I do agree that Jeter has looked smoother there this year and he did play through a bad knee last year and I, too, recall that there were articles in the spring about his new workout, so I am not saying that he hasn’t actually played better at SS than he did last year. I just hesitate to count basic defensive stats equally alongside offensive stats—it seems to me that it is like looking at ERA and Wins without checking to see if the pitcher has some crazy flukey BABIP or massive run support.

But I, too, am excited to see Jeter probably can break the Yankee hits record as a SS. He might have to DH to pass Rose, though.

You know, offensive statistics fluctuate from year to year too.  Sometimes pretty wildly.  A .300 EQA hitter can have a .285 season or a .315 and nobody bats an eye.  Yet we seem to want a defensive metric to be rock stable before we’ll accept it.  I can’t think of any particularly good reasons to expect that defensive performance won’t vary from season to season.

All I am saying is that players almost never veer from the 2nd worst offensive player at their position to the best, but defensively it happens at least a bit more than occasionally, which leads me to believe that there is something a little fishy in the stats that hasn’t been worked out yet.

It leads me to think that when you stop hitting, you stop playing, but if you keep hitting, the manager puts up with a few missed plays.

His zone rating of .790 this year is higher than he’s ever been at 3B, but the AL 3B ZR is up by a lot overall, so he looks worse relative to the league even though he’s playing better relative to himself.

I’m not sure if this should be encouraging or discouraging. ARod is not getting worse, but the competition is getting better, which essentially the same thing.

Actually, its probably just Scott Rolen fucking up the curve.

Lifetime OPS of .846 versus current OPS of .788 is still under performing.

True but you should at least consider that offense is down noticeably from the late 90s early 00s when he put up those big OPS numbers

Lifetime OPS of .846 versus current OPS of .788 is still under performing.

The league average OPS this year is 757. For Jeter’s career, it’s been .769. And the man is 34 years old. He’s not supposed to be matching his career averages all the time anymore. And with another hot week or so, he can close the gap even more. Factor in his defense and he’s been better this year than he was last year, by a lot.

Actually, its probably just Scott Rolen fucking up the curve.

True that.

If it’s against league average in the given season, a change in talent could make a player look worse.

Hmm.  Has there been any thought into doing something similar to park-factors?  That is, in any given year - looking back through history - get say a SS avg ZR for the season before, season in question, and season after, and say that number is the “true” ZR for an average SS?  Does anyone think that would make things better?

Lifetime OPS of .846 versus current OPS of .788 is still under performing.

#1 I don’t think anyone here will dispute that Jeter is under-performing.
#2 Since hitting as a whole is down in the AL, OPS+ would be a better measure and 109 - while still low - is pretty good.
#3 You won’t find many 34 year olds who perform *better* than their career averages.  There will be some of course, but they will be the exception, not the norm.
#4 There are still two weeks left.  If he stays hot, he could easily get his OPS+ up over 115.

i thought it was fairly well-reported that the Yankees spoke to Jeter during the off-season about positioning and made it a priority for 2008?
i can’t find the article, i think it was Dan Graziano.

Factor in his defense and he’s been better this year than he was last year, by a lot.

I think about a win better.  I seem to recall SG’s spreadsheet having Jeter about +2 above average.  Don’t know if it is “a lot”, but it certainly is a significant amount.

Here’s my reasons - in order of importance - of why Jeter is better this year defensively:

1) Healthy
2) Increased focus on lateral-movement
3) Normal statistical fluctuation
4) Positioning.

3 of those 4 we can expect to continue (more or less) next year, the other, we can’t.  I think he could very easily be in the -7/+3 range next year.  If he can put up an OPS+ around 110 next year, he’s still one of the top 3 or 4 SS in the AL.

Yeah, Jeter was basically average last year, +2 overall above average, +22 above replacement level.  So he’s ten runs/one win better this year, and probably could add up to another half win to that over the rest of the season.

Wow, the days of the AL SS have certainly ended.  Jeter was underperforming most of the season, but he’ll likely end with similar counting numbers to his career averages - .300 BA 10-15 HR 70+ RBI.  It’s what he does.

The behind the scenes numbers do suggest that he’s losing some bat speed, striking out a bit more, a few more ground balls.  And he’s 34, my money is that his days of OPSing .800 plus are over with.  Which, to me, means that the Yankees will have to replace a lot of those extra runs above league average from SS from somewhere else.  And it’s easier to do that with an excellent bat at SS or C than say RF or 1B.

Plus, my only real concern with Jeter is how the next contract negotiation is going to play out.

striking out a bit more

Huh? Jeter is on pace to strike out 87 times, his lowest total since he’s been in the league. Granted he’s on pace to have a somewhat low # of ABs for him (620), but his K’s are certainly not up this year.

“It leads me to think that when you stop hitting, you stop playing, but if you keep hitting, the manager puts up with a few missed plays.”

Definitely some truth to that, I think. And certainly some of the fluctutaion of the other players on this list definitely seems to me to reflect real change in performance—Reyes has indeed been quite a bit worse defensively this year than last, but you can’t sell newspapers writing about that unless he throws one into the stands in the 9th inning against the Phillies. Meanwhile, this is the first time I recall any extended discussion of Jeter’s improvement on defense on any website all year, and not too many websites are going to link to this thread and say they were wrong for saying Jeter is in a state of permanent defensive decline. 

I guess that my only issue then is that we generally agree that defensive ability declines with age, but don’t always acknowledge that this decline is not necessarily a perfect downward slope and guys further along in their careers can bounce back from bad defensive years just like Moose can bounce back from a poor season on the mound. It probably happens a little bit less than with pitching and hitting, though, because guys aren’t necessarily going to work so hard to improve that aspect of their game after they are multi-millionaries. They don’t get paid 19 million a year for improving their zone rating at the age of 34. And even a team player like Jeter didn’t seem to put in the extra work until every blog in New England began to list his miserable defensive stats.  Maybe that’s unfair, but I’m glad someone or something somewhere lit a fire under him.

And even a team player like Jeter didn’t seem to put in the extra work until every blog in New England began to list his miserable defensive stats.  Maybe that’s unfair, but I’m glad someone or something somewhere lit a fire under him.

Well, when everyone in Yankee-land tells Jeter that the stats are wrong and he is a good defensive SS, what’s he supposed to do?  Yeah, I suppose he could be one of those guys that understands the stats inside-and-out, but I think those players are rare.  It’s definitely good he took it upon himself to improve, but I don’t know if we’ll ever know what the catalyst was.

A little more: Jeter has at 14.1%, his K% is below his career average of 17.1% and is a percentage point lower than any other season he’s had.

And he’s 34, my money is that his days of OPSing .800 plus are over with.

If you say .900 OPS again, I’ll agree with you.  But .800?  Assuming .780 OPS this year, he only needs to improve by 3% to get over .800.  That I think fits squarely into, “if a few more bounces went his way” territory.

Michael Young die?

A little off-topic here, but is anyone else concerned about the Cano-Girardi thing?

I am more than a little concerned when a manager pulls a player for a lack of hustle, then the player says he isn’t going to change.  I mean, if Cano was Manny (i.e., hitting .320 with 40 HR and 140 RBI every year), we could put up with it, but this year?? Are you kidding me?

On a lighter note, Betemit looks more like the player we hoped to get lately.  Hopefully, this is not a September thing.

Michael Young die?

No, he did not.  But he did get missed. +23 on offense, -3 on defense, total +20, which would rank him fifth in the AL.