Projo Sports Blog

Derek Jeter: Hit it right at him and you're toast, make him move and you're golden. That's pretty much the conventional wisdom of people who use complicated statistical research to evaluate players' value on defense. Nate DiMeo, in the online journal Slate, presents a virtual bibliography of literature that was churned out to demonstrate that Jeter is a lousy fielder -- the worst-fielding shortstop in all of baseball, according to one recent research paper.

So why, DiMeo asks, do these people keep pouring it on "El Capitan"?

"In an e-mail, [sabermetrics disciple] Tom Tango joked that Jeter comes up again and again 'because he gets far more girls than his fielding talents should allow.' And there's probably something to that: The stat guys want to kick a little sand back at the press-box bullies -- all of whom seem to have Word macros for phrases like "nerd writing in his mother's basement" -- who lazily swallow the myth of Jeter's fielding prowess."

But, more than that, the conflict -- if you can call it that -- is a result of Jeter's playing in the first era where fans' perceptions about a player clash with the availability of objective data.

 Tags  Derek Jeter New York Yankees sabermetrics

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