Derek Jeter called ‘worst fielder in baseball’
by JoeDerek Jeter is the worst fielder in baseball, according to a panel of statisticians that includes “Baseball Abstract” author Bill James, the New York Post reports.
2 comments November 05 2008 2:50 pm | Joe | Discussion |
So…Matt Stairs is a better fielder than Jeter? Manny Ramirez? They say he’s the worst fielder irregardless of position. Ridiculous.
In my experience, very few people know how to interprete defensive statistics. They either over value them or under value them. To be a true evaluator of someone’s defense, you must watch them over a long period of time in order to get a flavor of how they handle each particular play. And for a shortstop, they are a million variations on plays. In the Jeter example, I for one, thought he played better defense this season than he did last season. And watching him over the years, I’d say generally he’s gone from about a “B” to a “C.” Think about it this way – many people don’t like Bill Mazeroski’s selection to the Hall of Fame, but if you look at defensive stats, his stats blow away Ozzie Smith’s statistics. He’s the “Babe Ruth” of defensive statistics but do people generally look at it that way? No.. they discount those contributions.