Jeters never prosper …
Posted: October 9th, 2007 | Filed under: Baseball | 37 Comments »
Hype is a funny thing. It can rattle your nervous system even when you KNOW the hype is wrong. Take Derek Jeter. I know, intellectually, that the whole “Derek Jeter is Captain Clutch, Conqueror of Pressure, Count of Men on Base, Knight of the Round Ball, Duke of the Postseason, Chairman of the Big Moment, Come Through Lou, Lord of the Swing, Prince of the Playoffs, Emperor of October, Secretary of Fate, Johnny Big Appleseed, Legend of the Fall, The Impossible Out, Shah of It’s Gone, Yankee Go Home, the Mightiest Duck on the Pond†… all of that might have been slightly overplayed. I knew that.
And still, when he came up in the sixth inning on Monday, two men on, Cleveland up by four, Yankee Stadium bursting with sound … I couldn’t help it. The thought popped into my head and echoed: “Oh boy, here it comes, the Derek Jeter moment, he’ll hit a double into the gap for sure, make it 6-4, turn the whole game around, have three more supermodels wait outside the locker room for him …â€
He promptly hit into a nifty 4-6-3 double play, the cruelest stab to the heart of the Yankees postseason.
And I remembered: Oh yeah, Derek Jeter chokes in the clutch.
It’s true. Derek Jeter DOES choke in the clutch, if you use the verb “choke†to mean, “ performs below his usual standards in the biggest games.†Look at his career numbers:
Jeter during the regular season: .317 average, .388 OBP, .462 SLG.
Jeter during the postseason: .309 average, .377 OBP, .469 SLG.
That’s close, but clearly Jeter is not performing BETTER during the playoffs than he does during the regular season. Here’s the thing, though: Those postseason numbers are deceiving. Take a look at those numbers when you take out Division Series.
Jeter during ALCS/World Series: .279 average, .358 OBP, .418 SLG.
That’s significantly down. His average drops 38 points, his on-base percentage 30 points, his slugging percentage 44 points. In the biggest games, he becomes Orlando Merced.
Of course, it’s silly to write that Jeter chokes in the clutch because over the years his numbers in the postseason are slightly-to-moderately lower than his regular season numbers. That’s natural — pitching is better, weather is colder, games are played differently, etc.
Then again, that is no sillier than the 10,000 odes written to Jeter (and dozens of other players) when his postseason numbers are slightly-to-moderately HIGHER than his regular season numbers. It’s no sillier than going off an A-Rod when he has a bad series. The whole thing is pretty stupid, and in my opinion it is best summed up by John Updike in his famous story about Ted Williams last game. Updike was trying to answer the ugly change that the Splendid Splinter shattered what it mattered:
Baseball is a game of the long season, of relentless and gradual averaging-out. Irrelevance—since the reference point of most individual games is remote and statistical—always threatens its interest, which can be maintained not by the occasional heroics that sportswriters feed upon but by players who always care; who care, that is to say, about themselves and their art. Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter’s myth, he is a vulgarity, like a writer who writes only for money.
I especially like that last sentence. What would it say about a guy if a guy was, truly and completely, a clutch player, if he only played his best when it was a big, huge moment? Isn’t that Randy Moss?
OK, that said: Jeter did hit .176 in the Cleveland series, he did not walk, he played lousy shortstop, he rapped into three double plays in the last two games, he killed the key rally, and you know what? I’ll admit it: I kind wanted to see a little New York outrage. I know it’s wrong. But I wanted to see people all over New York turn on their beloved hero. Just a little.
And it isn’t because I dislike Jeter — I actually like him very much. I think he’s a terrific player who gets on base, gives you good at-bats, plays hard, plays smart, steals you some bases, hits with a little pop and so on. I don’t have any problem with Jeter getting all the publicity he gets — he’s a good looking guy, he represents himself and the game well, he’s a good player, and if he was playing for, say, Cleveland, he would be vastly underrated, and I don’t see that being any better …
UNDERRATED/OVERRATED INTERLUDE: The announcer during Monday’s game actually called Grady Sizemore, “The best player you’ve never heard of,†which made me think about 11 different things all at once.
1. Are there really baseball fans who have never heard of Grady Sizemore?
2. Really?
3. Wasn’t he, like, on the cover of Sports Illustrated?
4. Have people heard of Sports Illustrated?
5. If Chip Caray’s name happened to be Chip Babblerock, would he be announcing playoff games on national televeision?
6. I thought Curtis Granderson was the best player you’ve never heard of.
7. Oh, you’ve heard of him too.
8. If Grady Sizemore was playing for the Yankees would he already have a statue in Monument Park or would they wait until he turned 30?
9. How many different Frank TV commercials are there anyway? There have to be like 40 of them. You know, he might want to save some bits for the actual show. Thing is, I like Frank Calliendo — I think his John Madden is freakishly good — but I will say this: My wife Margo was watching the game with me (you mothers and fathers out there can check out her Mom’s blog HERE), and whenever one of those commercials would come on she would say, “Was he supposed to be Dr. Phil? … Was that supposed to be George Bush? … Who is that? (It was supposed to be Robert DeNiro). My wife is usually a better judge of the American psyche than I am, and that show seems doomed.
10. Are there really baseball fans who have never heard of Grady Sizemore.
11. Really?
The thing I thought most about, though, is that it’s hard to keep track of whether a player is overrated or underrated. Up to that moment Chip Caray said that, I had kind of believed that Sizemore was just a touch overrated. I mean, just a touch, a hair overrated, 50.2 on the underrated/overrated scale. I mean, please don’t get me wrong, he’s a great player, fabulous player, I have nothing bad at all to say about him. He’s one of the best players in the game. But I’ve heard numerous managers and people in the game call Sizemore THE best player in the world, the first guy they would take in an dispersion draft, the most complete force in sports, and I think that’s just a little bit of overkill, no? So here I was actually thinking of Grady as just slightly overrated, and then I hear this guy say there are some people who have NEVER EVEN HEARD OF HIM which immediately made Grady the most underrated player in the history of sports. The whole overrated/underrated thing is so tough to follow.
ANYWAY, back to Jeter. I like the guy. I do. And I think it’s ridiculous to pin this playoff loss on him or any other single guy. But I can’t help it. He was so brutal during this series, so clearly the key offensive and defensive failure (he left eight men on base this series, one more than A-Rod, and he hit into those three double plays, and he didn’t have an extra-base hit, and he didn’t get to ANYTHING in the field) that I just thought it would be good, for once, to see New York eat one of its own.
I thought, if nothing else, this might point out the infuriating absurdity of making any one guy seem superhuman, impervious to pain and pressure, better than us mere mortals. Derek Jeter delivers in some big moments, and he flops in other big moments, and it has nothing to do with his moral fiber or his athletic courage. He is a good baseball player, with all the successes and failures that come with it. If you want to celebrate him as a God when he delivers, OK, but be ready to smack the sweat out of him when he hits into the 4-6-3.
Well, from what I can tell, generally, that isn’t happening. A-Rod is taking his hits, Wang is taking his hits, Torre is taking his hits, and Jeter is taking only a few glancing blows. The feeling seems to be, â€Well, Jeter wasn’t good this series, but he has such a long history of delivering in the clutch that you have to give him a pass.“ The legend feeds upon itself. I suppose, it really doesn’t matter. The Yankees are home now.
Loading ...
I think a good ALCS/WS will make Grady completely overrated. He has all the ingredients to be overrated EXCEPT the team he plays on, but a good performance on national TV will give him even MORE exposure; otherwise, he has the all-around ability, the managers and coaches love him, the ladies love him, old-school baseball men drool about him, etc. He hustles, he’s easy to like, and hey, he’s got the whole Derek Jeter multi-racial thing going on. Granderson is probably a lot more underrated right now, except that he turns into Nick Punto against southpaws.
[...] Jeters never prosper (Joe Posnanski.com)Â The great Joe Posnanski returns with his take on “St. Jeter of the Bronx.” [...]
I’m diggin the frequency of the posts, Joe – - and you have hit on one of my pet peeves, namely announcers giving the common fan NO credit in terms of knowledge of current players. I mean, in today’s age of 24-hour access (cliche I know), along with things like the continually-burgeoning popularity of fantasy baseball, how can one suggest a Sizemore is the best player you’ve never heard of? I would wager more people could name all parties involved in the trade that got him to Cleveland than those who have never heard of him, but then again, maybe I am giving the average fan too much credit…but Sizemore?
I don’t think Caray actually meant that NO ONE has EVER heard of Sizemore. We all know that the postseason (and more specifically the Yankees) draw more casual fans, and some of those casual fans may not know much about Sizemore. Don’t take it so literally. I’m not sure what the fascination is with nitpicking with announcers these days. They have to talk for 3 hours (or 5 if it’s a postseason game) and they’re bound to say something that may not be 100% accurate in that span of time. Geez…
Herbplantmor,
Do you think that they’d have said those things about Sizemore in a broadcast during the regular season? A lot of stupid “fans” are watching during October and ONLY October…you know, the ones who will admit they don’t really follow their team in April-September, but come October those “fans” don all of “their” team’s gear and act like they were on board the whole time. (See: The Boston Red Sox, circa 2004.)
It’s true in all sports; the commentators, no matter how dumb they may be during the regular season, are even more dumb during the post-season because fair-weather fans (read: numbskulls who actually may not have heard of Grady Sizemore) tune in only during post-season play. It’s a great game of catch-up for October-only fans, which is frustrating (or even infuriating) for those of us who already knew what was going on with the teams on the field.
Whew. I’m done now.
Oy, Big Rich beat me to it, and in far fewer words.
I agree with the posters, maybe I went a bit over the top, but I do also hear this all the time during the regular season, albeit usually only on the national games. Also, I do not tend to think baseball lends itself to that low level of casual fan interest/ignorance as much as other sports, although with the Yankees involved, I guess I could be wrong…Suppose I am a bit of an elitist prick. Got me.
Joe,
Welcome back! I missed your frequent blogs. You are the voice of the everyman sports fiend with a little pop culture and family man thrown in … perfect for this 32 year old sports fanatic with a kid just starting school. Now if only I could get you to cover soccer (specifically the English Premier League), you’d be touching on my every blogging need.
Jeter/Sizemore
I think one of the things about Derek Jeter is that when one plays in, like a 100 postseason games for a very, very good team, one only remembers the clutch plays (e.g. the play in Oakland). That’s the focus — and often, at the complete neglect of actual statistical analysis (my pet peeve was that he was constantly considered a “great” defensive shortstop where for years his range factor was far below average).
Sizemore/Granderson: what’s remarkable is that with a larger portion of the MLB Divisional Series audience may be actually in fantasy leagues and are exposed to small-market players than ever before (MLB package, Sportscenter highlights, etc…). Why don’t announcers understand that *we MAY KNOW WHO THEY ARE*.
When announcers then take that into account (say, when a Matt Holliday goes into the playoffs), to me they over-compensate for the fact that they were “previously unknown” by overpraising them. Also, they have to find a reason/narrative that occurs where small market players are then overpraised — particularly when Detroit or Cleveland beats NY, or a Colorado or Arizona goes to the WS.
To me, some of it is major market bias (if Sizemore *moved* to New York like Abreu, he would get attention initially and then be completely ignored in the shadow of ARod/Jeter/Clemens), some of it is that the mainstream sports zeitgeist only moves to baseball in the post-season, some the focus of advertisements, some of it just lazy announcing.
The thing is, Jeter’s reputation was made along time ago. He has the rings, he has the clutch moments, the highlight reel plays. He is a lifelong Yankee, born and bred in pinstripes. He is among baseball’s best paid players but because he has attained that status with one uniform he will never be viewed a mercenary or an interloper. These things “stand forever in the guide” and anything he does or has done will be viewed through that prism. A bad series is “an aberration” “a fluke event.”
Contrast A-Rod’s perceived résumé: the contract, it wasn’t about the money, that Seattle was his first choice, that he always wanted to be a Met and to be remembered as a Texas Ranger only to want to leave. It looked like he wanted to go to Boston (the Yankees’ division rival). “The Contract” was keeping the Rangers from contending, “The Contract” is what took him away from the Red Sox and landed him in pinstripes. “The Contract” stayed intact but has yet to play in a World Series, and his most remembered October moment was a supremely embarassing one.
Derek Jeter played on a team that won 114 regular seasons games. Alex Rodriguez departed a team that won 116 [regular season] games after he left. Jeter will return next year, people wonder if A-Rod will flee the Bronx with an even fatter wallet and his tail between his legs.
That’s the prism A-Rod is viewed through rightly or wrongly. If he fails, well, that’s what he does in big moments, he’s not a money player, he’s a make-money player. That’s why Jeter gets the pass while Rodriguez gets the flak. While A-Rod was cashing in on a contract despised by many, Jeter was admiring his fourth World Series ring. It all stems from that.
Best Regards
John
beautifully stated…
and chip carey set new boundaries for being simply bad….
i was engrossed in the game, but had to turn the sound off in the 7th inning..i missed the crowd noise, but chip-off-the-old-block was far too annoying
Sizemore will very quickly become overrated. Guys that run fast AND hit for power always get way overrated. See Reyes, Jose.
Minda, even with that all being true, he WAS on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and whenever there’s a feature on the Tribe or anything spotlighting us (see: Stupid Dane Cook commercials), the guy you see representing the Indians is Sizemore. Well, except for pieces about C.C.’s Cy Young candidacy.
Maybe Chip meant that Sizemeore is the best player HE never heard of. Considering the vast ignorance Caray displayed about the game of baseball during the ALDS telecasts, that seems like the best explanation.
Grady who??? Never heard of him.
Playing in New York exposes a player to a dizzying crossfire of idolatry and enmity. So many fans fall into one of two categories: “Yankee lover†or “person who otherwise leads a rational existence but despises the Yankees as if they had invented smallpox.†These strong feelings both for and against anything Yankee makes every player (a) Overrated; (b) Underrated; or (c) Both. For no player is that more true than Derek Jeter. If Jeter had come up with, say, the Rangers, “savvy insiders†would nod knowingly to one other and say “If this guy played in New York he would be a superstar.†Instead, he played in New York where he in fact is a superstar, but where “savvy insiders†nod knowingly to one another and say “If this guy played anywhere but New York you’d never hear about him.†Jeter is, by all reasonable measures, a good-hitting shortstop with a great arm and lousy range. That skill set has been overhyped by Yankee fans because Jeter has played on four championship teams, appears to play hard and to this point has avoided being indicted for dog-fighting. Yankee-haters have reacted to this hype by huffily declaring that Jeter is not even the best shortstop on his team, that his “clutchiness†is not supported by statistical evidence, and that in terms of actual value he is basically Edgar Rentaria with pinstripes and an MTV girlfriend. Who knows where the truth lies?
1) I believe that the Caliendo impression was supposed to be Pacino, not De Niro.
2) Remember Game 6, 2003 WS? Jeter: 0-4, 2K, E6 that led to a run in a 2-0 elimination game. That performance was so un-clutch it makes me giggle.
We had a debate on whether Caliendo was doing Joe Pesci or Pacino. He looked more like Joe but sounded like Al, so I’m guessing the latter. It’s also possible, more than possible (likely?), that there is another ad that features De Niro that NateDog and I have not seen yet.
Great one, Joe, and I agree with Randy.
For what it’s worth, Jeter’s all-time postseason strikeout record of 96 may not be broken for a long, long time.
Yankees Lose! The Yankees Lose!
And while all sportwriters are tongue-bathing Joe Torre about how he brought the Yankees back from that 21-29 start, wasn’t he managing that group that got off to the horrid start in the first place?
There is both a Pacino and a DeNiro! What I want to know is, now that he failed miserably in an October series, is Jeter no longer a true Yankee? True Yankees never fail in October, or so I’ve read. That is why Scott Brossius is better than A-Rod. I think there are a lot of folks on the 2007 team who may have lost their True Yankee status, if indeed they ever had it.
I’m amazed by how many people responded to this post on the Sizemore comment (buried in a humorous, but tangetial aside) rather than the Jeter stuff!
There’s another thing happening here, where the TBS “announcers” start talking about “No one really knows about these Arizona and Colorado teams” and “Lots of fans will be delighted to see all of the great young talent they may have never heard of” and the like. I think it’s a product of TBS thinking that they are going to bring in some of their “regular” (non-Braves obsessed) TBS viewers who only care about baseball in the post-season, as others have pointed out. But I also think it’s a general East Coast (or should I say Eastern Time Zone) bias. Listen to XM and Charley Steiner’s show, where eastern time zone beat writers constantly complain about west coast games being on too late and that being a factor in Tulowitzki and Holliday’s MVP campaign, or missing dramatic Angels/Dodgers/etc. games because they can’t be bothered to stay up past 11:30 PM in New York or Boston.
By the way, there is a DeNiro and Pacino (as the previous poster pointed out), and I for one am GLAD that Calliendo put out so many different bits. I’ve heard others say they don’t know whom he is impersonating but (aside from the Pacino, which took me a couple times) it’s always crystal clear. His Bush is near-perfect, and the Nicholson and Madden are hilarious not just because of the accuracy of the impression but because of the quality of the character. He doesn’t really LOOK like them, and that might be the problem, but he’s about 9 billion times better of an impressionist than Rich Little ever was (damning with faint praise).
By the way, Ted Sizemore is still playing? He must be like 50! Good for him!
Ah, but Orlando Merced only hit .150 / .217 / .350 in the playoffs… so Jeter becomes Merced, and Merced becomes Jason LaRue?
I have a very different take on Jeter, and one that weaves together your two themes. Jeter is actually underrated. What?!#%$! Yes! Because he’s the face of the Yankees, and because he is hyped for his clutch play, the majority of baseball fans root against him and never give him credit for the excellent ballplayer that he is. He gets a ton of press, but most baseball fans don’t appreciate how good he is and spend the majority of their time trying to explain why he’s not good. Amazingly, he even gets knocked for hitting as WELL in the postseason as he does during the regular season, even though he’s doing it against the best pitching in the world, because every non-Yankee person is trying prove that there’s no such things as clutch hitters. Now Grady Sizemore. There’s someone overrated!
One thing no one picked up on was the comment by Big Rich that commentators need to talk for three to five ours. They do not need to talk that much. In fact I wish they would not talk so much. If they talked less there would be less chance that they would say stupid things. However if the color guys talk at all they are guaranteed of saying irrelevant and/or stupid things.
This season, in a game at the Yards, Jeter made one of the best plays I have ever seen. The Orioles batter broke his bat on a fastball and hit a ground ball to short. The bat head also headed out to short, in fact the two were almost holding hands on the way to our favorite Chankee, the ball pushing the bat and the bat pushing the ball. The Captain deftly picked the ball up, stepped over the bat and made the throw for the out, almost like it was nothing. James Alvin Palmer made the comment that the concentration needed to make such a play is rarely seen anywhere. Whatever he does in the playoffs, Jeter is the heart and soul of the Chankees and as long as he can be even semi-productive, he will be out there. BTW, I hope Jon Miller is doing the game on ESPN Radio, because I can’t bear to listen to Flip or Snip or Chip or Clip Caray, or which ever one that is butchering the games. He makes Joe Buck look good and that is very hard to do.
Big Rich — The thing is, the announcers don’t HAVE to talk for the whole length of the game. They could just call the plays, give the occasional piece of color or trivia, and just be quiet the rest of the time. Like Ned Martin did. I would pay more to get announcers who talked less.
Joe, Jeter’s suffering with his hamstring all year long. At least he played through it.
How did Jeter do last year against Tigers? Joe can you please look it up for me? Thank you. What did Arod last year?
Ken in Baltimore:
All I can say is it’s a good thing that ball-and-bat-head combo wasn’t headed four steps to Jeter’s left, or he never would have gotten there. Seriously. He can concentrate all he wants, but he just can’t physically get to many balls not hit right at him–particularly to his left.
Also, DEFINITELY mute TBS and listen to the radio call. There will probably be a video delay (there is in my area) but I’d rather put up with that than listen to another word Caray has to say. Yeesh.
Quick Point…Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Baltimore don’t play in the postseason. Therefore, their pitchers don’t pitch !!! Therefore, your numbers are lowered. In fact, in each subsequent round, odds are your numbers will be lower. Because the teams that remain usually are still there because THEY CAN PITCH.
These points you made:”Jeter during the regular season: .317 average, .388 OBP, .462 SLG.
Jeter during the postseason: .309 average, .377 OBP, .469 SLG.” and the other one about his LCS and World Series numbers hold absolutely no water.
That having been said, he had a horrible series, and was a much bigger factor in the Yankee demise this series than A-Rod (1 RBI).
[...] intermission to quote Joe Posnanski’s blog: The announcer during Monday’s game actually called Grady Sizemore, “The best player you’ve [...]
[...] http://joeposnanski.com [...]
if i were a royals fan and lived in a dump like KC, i’d hate the yankees and jeter too. get a life.
I think you may have misunderstood me, Gary G/MP–I didn’t mean that announcers should literally be talking for 3-4 hours. I simply meant over a 3-4 hour period, there are bound to be some mistakes made. And as far as Chip talking too much, I would say that he has to stimulate conversation at times, because he’s got a guy who’s a relative rookie at play-by-play (Gwynn) and a group as a whole that have never worked together. So sometimes, when there’s utter silence, he tries to initiate game-related conversation. I don’t see a problem with that. Obviously, it’s a matter of opinion. But if you don’t want your announcers to talk, just mute it.
I thought about the underrated/overrated bit some more:
I think Sizemore is a bad example mainly for the reason Joe pointed out about the SI article. However, a player that comment would’ve been relevent for is tonight’s starting pitcher for Colorado: Jeff Francis.
I had honestly never heard of the guy before the playoffs. This partly shows that I don’t follow the NL all that closely, but I am a big sports fan by anyone’s definition….and I didn’t know the guy before last week.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article , but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.