Derek Jeter’s defense is one of those subjects I just don’t touch. Clay Davenport’s numbers say that Jeter’s defense is better than it used to be, and may even be a little above average. John Dewan and the Fielding Bible crew disagree. Either way, we don’t have a particularly good group of defensive shortstops in the American League right now, so the couple of Gold Gloves that he’s won don’t really bother me.
Okay, so reading the fine print, the Rawlings team of experts, which includes people like Tony La Russa, Bob Costas, and Ernie Harwell, is really only concluding that Jeter is one of the 50 best defensive players since 1957, when the Gold Glove Award was originated. Specifically, they’re claiming that he’s one of the six best defensive shortstops since 1957.
There have been 19 players who have won at least two Gold Gloves at short; here is how they rank from top to bottom in career FRAA at shortstop:
Player FRAA
Ozzie Smith* 272
Roy McMillan 137
Dave Concepcion*134
Cal Ripken 127
Tony Fernandez 119
Mark Belanger* 112
Omar Vizquel* 100
Luis Aparicio* 84
Alan Trammell 73
Gene Alley 72
Alex Rodriguez 58
Barry Larkin 57
Rey Ordonez 40
Zoilo Versalles 29
Maury Wills 15
Don Kessinger -29
Larry Bowa -32
Edgar Renteria -69
Derek Jeter* -118
* on Rawlings ballot
The first five names on the ballot — Smith, Concepcion, Belanger, Vizquel, and Aparicio, are very hard to dispute, and I’m not really angling to ensure that Roy McMillan’s place in history is preserved. What’s surprising though is that Jeter was selected ahead of Cal Ripken. Although Ripken has two Gold Gloves to Jeter’s three, he was playing in a rich era for American League shortstops, which included two 4-time Gold Glove winners (Tony Fernandez, Alan Trammell) as well as Ozzie Guillen. Jeter has the stage all to himself; the only other multiple-GG shortstop currently playing in the American League is Alex Rodriguez, whom Jeter bumped to third base.
Ripken also had the errorless game streak, and even looking at a crude measure like the players’ standard fielding statistics per 162 games, he checks out as superior to Jeter across the board:
PO A E DP
Ripken 257 491 16 110
Jeter 246 415 17 86
That works out to 111 additional outs made per season, for those scoring at home.
Rawlings is probably fortunate that Jeter made his way onto the ballot; shoot, we wouldn’t be talking about them if he hadn’t. For that matter, I think it’s great that they’re giving defense its due. But I wonder if that panel deep down in its gut believes that Jeter is a better defensive shortstop than Ripken, Fernandez, Trammell, Guillen, McMillan, and Rick Burleson, or if there’s been some editorial discretion applied here. That’s a much tougher case to make than his recent Gold Gloves.
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