THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Jeter is expected to fail about two times in three, so, when he does, it’s no big deal.  Also, when he does, it usually doesn’t cost the team the game in dramatic fashion.  And there are other people to blame at the same time.

Rivera is expected to fail less than one time in ten, so, when he does, it’s a big deal.  The failure directly leads to the loss.  And when he fails, it appears that the team lost the game because of him alone.

Hmmmm ... if the less frequent the type of failure, the more memorable when it occurs, then, in order of memorableness:

-- Error (Bill Buckner)
-- Bad 9th inning pitching (Donnie Moore/Steve Rogers/Mitch Williams)
-- Bad hitting (various players with .1xx averages in World Series).

Quite frankly, I don’t think the media cares yet. If the Yankees lose in the playoffs, or maybe if the Yanks don’t win the AL East, then maybe they’ll care...’cause there will have to be a “who to burn” story. Right now it seems to me that the only people who care, are us stathead baseball fans & scouts.

Perhaps Ken Griffey Jr. is a good template for how it might go down?

Perhaps Ken Griffey Jr. is a good template for how it might go down?
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@Phil/#3:  Probably right.  I don’t read Seattle papers or have a finger on the pulse of Mariners fans but, from NYC (where I live), it seemed like Griffey retired on his own terms and wasn’t chased out or loudly criticized by the national media.

I could be totally wrong about this but I imagine that Jeter’s failures will be allowed to continue for as long as he wishes to keep playing based in large part to (1) the equity he’s built up with the local media in NYC and (2) your first point about how his failures are more easily hidden.

Although on a much smaller scale, the Jeter situation reminds me of the final years of Barry Larkin in Cinc. 
He was an excellent player in his prime, and widely revered as a team leader and franchise icon, but at age 37 he really declined and became even more injury-prone. It took a few years for people to accept he was done.

I’m not sure if the Seattle manager or front office made any hints to Griffey about stepping down, telling him his playing time would be reduced or whatever.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they decided that he couldn’t help the team anymore and gave him the chance to make it look like his decision.

It was pretty sad though, because a hitter who was once feared and respected had pretty much become a joke, and the only emotion he could rise out of his opponents was pity.

It is interesting to look at the Jeter situation compared to another former great, who at age 36 had a season very similar to Jeter’s 2010, and was also a liability with the glove.  Bernie Williams.  Bernie got one more offer at 1.5 million and after that (and a decent last season in 4th outfielder status) was not allowed back at any price.

bowie/5:

PERFECT analogy.  Not to mention they had Pokey Reese, who was one of the best fielding infielders of our generation, playing secondbase.

Imagine, if you will, Elvis Andrus on the Yankees.  Would Jeter have pulled a Michael Young?

I’m not sure I get this.  With the New York media, there is endless speculation about when the “core four” (itself a media constructed term) will be done, how the Yankees will handle it, and so on.  There are probably six year old fans watching their first games who know that Jeter, Posada, and Pettite are pushing forty and Mariano is over forty and they will soon fall off a cliff if they haven’t already in the case of Jeter.

Plus the Red Sox already provided a good model for this with Wakefield, a series of one year contracts which seems to never end, until of course it does.

The only thing that might complicate things is the 3000 hit milestone for Jeter, but even in the worst case this means keeping him around just two seasons.

There was definitely a portion of fans (and media) in Seattle that figured the only reason Griffey came back for this past year was to help sell tickets and weren’t too thrilled with it as at the time it was thought the Mariners might compete for the division. After a month or so of poor play Wakamatsu decided to bench him, and the relationship between him and Griffey was reportedly pretty bad. I don’t really believe Griffey went out on his own terms and have a hard time picturing Jeter going out anything like Griffey did.

Imagine, if you will, Elvis Andrus on the Yankees.  Would Jeter have pulled a Michael Young?
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@Tango/#7: Certainly not.  He didn’t “pull a Michael Young” for the better incoming ex-shortstop in 2004 so, if anything, he’d be less inclined to do so for a younger or less-recognized player.

Tango that is exactly why (or at least one reason) the mainstream media and the average fan think that pitching is 90% of the game, good pitching beats good hitting, good teams have to have good pitching, etc.  It is exactly as you say.  The pitcher is out there for all the world to see and the entire offense of the other team rests in the pitcher’s hands, whereas no matter how bad a batter is, he is disguised and protected by 7 or 8 other players.  The funny thing is that that is actually true, but the batter has a small impact every day and the (starting) pitcher has a large impact every 5 days.  When we evaluate a person, we tend to evaluate him based on what he does and not how often he does it.  If I only suck a little bit all time and someone else sucks a lot but only occasionally, even though we might have the same overall suckitude, the guy who sucks a lot, but only occasionally, will get all the scorn and criticism.

All of these “illusions” are what cause the B.S. in sports…

It’s mostly the same reason people assigned wins and losses to pitchers.

But it’s also that Jeter has a blame avoidance cloak (+10, good alignment, glowing).  He’s had playoff series where he hasn’t hit a lick, and yet when the Yankees lost it was magically blamed on others (not that it was all Jeter’s fault, mind you, but his share of the blame was apportioned to others). 

I, for one, think he’s not quite dead yet.  I think he will be better next year.  It’s 2012+ I’m worried about.

I would be significantly more worried if the Yankees had a good young SS he was blocking.  They do not (which in and of itself is a problem, true).  If/when there is a clearly superior option but the Yanks pass b/c they have Zombie Jeter, that’s when I’ll freak out. 

See also: not signing Carlos Beltran and sticking with the Ghost of Bernie Williams.  Bernie was my favorite Yankee, but the fork in his back was visible for all to see.

Has anyone projected Jeter’s 2011 WAR or wOBA? Is the margin for error or confidence interval larger for older players?

MGL:  so true.  There is such cognitive dissonance about this.  Can’t tell you how many times I hear commentators say things like “The most important thing is good starting pitching” and then turn around and say that “Starting pitchers aren’t as valuable as position players because they don’t play everyday.”

When someone tells me pitchers shouldn’t be MVPs because they don’t play enough, I point out that a full season as a starting pitcher will have probably hundreds more pitcher-batter matchups than a starting position player will have. Roy Halladay faces over 900 batters per season. The top position players might get 700.

"Would Jeter have pulled a Michael Young?”

You mean publicly complain about the position switch, but then resign himself to it because management was firm in their demand?

We’ll never know, because the Yankees handled Jeter differently when they acquired a better fielding SS from the Rangers.

Jeter already appeared on the downward swing in 2008 and rebounded for a great 2009. Given 2009’s performance, I don’t think the media is going to start writing Jeter off until it is obvious to everyone that he shouldn’t be the starting shortstop on a championship team. If he has another year like the current one, which is considerably worse than 2008, and the Yankees don’t win the series next year, more members of the media may criticize him, especially if he has 3 or more years left on his brand new contract.

Regarding the comparison to Rivera, in addition to the points already made, there are usually very obvious replacements available with experience pitching in the majors. It seems like a foregone conclusion that Bard will replace Papelbon and most have a lot of confidence that Bard will be able to step right in. Even if Jesus Montero was a hot-shot shortstop prospect and not a catcher/DH, I suspect a large portion of the public/media would have no problem letting him begin his career in the outfield or DH to make him prove himself and let Jeter continue at short.

Speculation whether Jeter is “done” is silly.  As with any other player at any age, our best projection going forward is the weighted average their last few years of performance plus an age adjustment.

Now, the weights might be slightly different for different ages.  And a bad year at age 38 might be given more weight than a bad year at age 28, but I don’t think that is very significant.  (The topic of one of Tango’s articles in THT 2011, I think.)

And, if anything, with Jeter you err on the side of being optimistic, if only because he still seems to be in good shape physically and mentally and is obviously a top-notch athlete.