If you followed this past baseball season, you witnessed Derek Jeter’s excessive farewell tour. The exuberant gifts, ranging from a $34k Jay-Z Hublot Watch to an autographed picture of George W. Bush presented by the former president himself, the countless SportsCenter segments, and the Gatorade “Re2pect” commercial. Major League Baseball and the media acted like Jeter was the greatest baseball player of all time. Well frankly, I grew tired of it. The truth is Derek Jeter is not even the greatest New York Yankee of all time. He’s at least behind Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, and DiMaggio. But why then would Jeter receive this excessive farewell tour that better players like Ken Griffey Jr or Randy Johnson never got? Because he is overrated.
People repeatedly overlooked Derek Jeter’s fielding. His fielding woes were continually overshadowed by his famous defensive plays: the diving catch into the stands, the flip to Jorge Posada to tag Jason Giambi out at the plate, and his trademarked leaping, over the shoulder throw to first base. Whereas in reality, throughout his career, Derek lacked the range he needed to be able to play shortstop effectively. In fact, his career defensive WAR (Wins Above Replacement ) is an abyssal negative 9.4. Negative 9.4. He only had a positive defensive WAR three times during his 20 years in the big leagues. In defensive runs saved, Jeter ranks the worst of all time. According to the statistic, Jeter cost the Yankees 236 runs throughout his career (the second worst: Gary Sheffield at 196, the third worst: Adam Dunn at 165).
Since 2004, Derek Jeter played next to the infamous Alex Rodriguez. Jeter essentially is the anti-ARod, never taking performance enhancing drugs, trying to stay out the spotlight, and never being involved in a major girlfriend controversy (ARod reportedly cheated on his wife, is divorced, and dated Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson, and possibly Madonna). ARod also has the largest contract in baseball history, making the Yankees pay him $30 million dollars a year to either strike out in the playoffs or be suspended. ARod was the scapegoat in New York and most Yankee fans hated him, making them appreciate and love Jeter even more because he was the opposite of ARod. This hate for ARod and love for Jeter caused Yankee fans and the media to exaggerate how good of a player he actually was.
Most people would argue Jeter is not overrated because of his five World Series titles. But in reality, Jeter led the Yankees to only one World Series. In the four other seasons Jeter won the Fall Classic, he played a supporting role along stars Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neil. In addition, Jeter also never won an MVP or a batting title and never led the league in doubles, triples, steals, or RBI’s.
Lets imagine if Jeter never played in New York. What if he was drafted first overall by the Houston Astros in the 1992 MLB draft instead of sixth to the Yankees and stayed there throughout his career? Would he have gotten this big of a farewell tour? No, of course not. Even if he put up the same statistics with the Astros as he did with the Yankees, minus the 5 World Series titles (maybe he would have won one with the Astros in 2005), the media and Major League Baseball would not have covered his retirement to this extent. He would have gotten gifts from the Astros and maybe from teams in his division, but never would he have gotten a Gatorade commercial with Michael Jordan in it. Playing in New York, the media capital of the world, helped Jeter’s career tremendously as he even said, “I want to thank the Lord God for making me a Yankee.” New York increased his popularity and exaggerated his success as every big moment he shined in was covered thoroughly by the media. In addition, he was only the fourteenth captain in the history of the Yankees and was the face of not only the Yankees, but all of baseball. If you asked kids this past year who their favorite player was, I bet you the most popular answer would be Derek Jeter (he’s my favorite player as well).
Don’t get me wrong, Jeter was certainly one the best players to ever play shortstop or even to play on the New York Yankees (he’s sixth for me behind Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Dimaggio, and Rivera). He ranks sixth all-time in hits with 3,465 and had a career batting average of .310, but his farewell tour was overdone. Derek was even relieved when the tour was over. It put him as the focus of the team, contrasting how Derek always wanted to stay out of the spotlight and concentrate on winning throughout his career.
