Derek Jeter’s excellence redefined the Yankees

The legendary Yankees shortstop is a first-ballot Hall of Famer

Derek Jeter was a constant presence in our postseason lives for two decades, as synonymous with October as Halloween. From start to finish watching Jeter was a treat, and he will culminate his career by sailing straight into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Heading into Tuesday the only question is whether Jeter will be inducted to Cooperstown by unanimous vote. He just barely missed, named on 396 of 397 ballots, but cleared the 75-percent threshold with almost as much ease as he displayed on the baseball field.

It’s hard to remember this now, but before Jeter came along the Yankees were in their worst championship drought in franchise history. After their 1981 World Series appearance, the Bronx bombers spent 13 years bombing until finally making the postseason again during Jeter’s debut year.

Don Mattingly was the Yankees’ superstar in those early Jeter seasons. Mattingly was around for Jeter’s first three spring trainings (1993-95), and was impressed right away.

“I saw him the first day he walked into spring training right out of high school. He was a skinny little kid, but was probably the toughest guy I think I’ve ever seen on the field,” Mattingly said in 2014. “He was competitive. He’s been winning since he’s got there.”

A fixture

The winning started in Jeter’s first full season, in which Jeter won Rookie of the Year and the Yankees won their first World Series in 19 years. Three straight championships soon followed, and Jeter made his home in our living rooms every night.

If it seems like the Yankees made the playoffs every year, it’s because they basically did. New York made the postseason in Jeter’s first 13 major league seasons, part of a run in which the Yankees played in October 17 out of 18 years.

Given that Jeter’s career started with the advent of the wild card era and a longer postseason, it’s understandable that several of those Yankees pepper baseball’s playoff leaderboard. Five of the top eight players in postseason games are Yankees, but it’s Jeter who stands head and shoulders about the rest. He played 158 postseason games in his career, the equivalent of a full season in the highest-pressure environment the sport can provide.

Jeter career playoff line of .308/.374/.465 is almost indistinguishable from his career mark of .310/.377/.440. That Jeter was so prolific in October (and sometimes November) gives him an enormous lead in several career postseason counting stats.

Jeter wasn’t really a home run hitter throughout his career, topping 20 just three times. But since he played so many postseason games, Jeter ranks third all-time with 20 playoff home runs. Jeter also has the most postseason strikeouts, too (135), 24 percent more than second-place.

There are plenty of statistical benchmarks that qualify Jeter for the Hall of Fame. He’s in the top 90 in Wins Above Replacement (72.4)*, including 10th all-time among shortstops. Jeter is sixth in hits, 11th in runs scored, and 12th in times on base.

*amazingly, Mike Trout already has more career WAR (72.5) in just eight full seasons, which is no knock on Jeter but rather another notch in Trout’s belt of magnificence.

In addition to the stats, Jeter passed the eye test, too. From an early age, Jeter seemed like a Hall of Famer. He was the symbol of a Yankees team that played in seven World Series and won five championships. For those of us who never got to watch Joe DiMaggio when he played, Jeter sure seemed like an excellent modern-day comp. An excellent Yankees lifer who was keenly aware of his legendary status, with an almost regal, and certainly mythical aura.

One man, one position

Jeter was also stubborn, too. He played a handful of games as designated hitter, but every time Jeter wore a glove on a major league field he played shortstop, finishing second all-time in games played at the position. Jeter won five Gold Glove awards, but by the numbers was well below average at the position. He was below average in Total Zone Rating in 16 of his 18 full seasons, totaling 186 runs below average in his career. Ultimate Zone Rating only goes back to 2002, but rates Jeter as below average in 11 of 12 years. Same for Defensive Runs Saved, which has Jeter below average in 10 of the 11 full seasons tracked.

He never moved to another position even after the Yankees acquired a better shortstop, Alex Rodriguez, in 2004. Jeter had refused to move off shortstop even after he made 56 errors in his first professional season; he wasn’t about to do so with A-Rod in the fold. During that season, infielder R.D. Long, a teammate on Class-A Greenboro, tried to help prepare Jeter mentally for what he thought would be a sure position switch in his future, per Ian O’Connor of ESPN:

“I’m never moving from shortstop,” Jeter told Long that day. “It’s never going to happen. Never.”

Jeter very much understood his legacy, and much like Cal Ripken Jr. with his herculean playing streak, that stubbornness paid off in a 20-year single-team career that ended with a first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame.

The defense certainly hurts Jeter, though does nothing to diminish his place in baseball’s pantheon. He’s an easy first-ballot Hall of Famer, but Jeter doesn’t not, in fact, walk on water. Jeter is in the rare spot of being both overrated and ridiculously great at the same time.

Right place at the right time

There are several obvious images that come to mind when thinking about Jeter: his famous inside-out swing, or perhaps his iconic jump throw, a bullet of a throw from mid-air from deep short or sometimes short left field.

But his most famous throw was much shorter than his trademark play. In the 2001 AL Division Series, the Yankees were one game but elimination but led Game 3 in the seventh inning, 1-0. Terrence Long doubled into the right field corner, and Shane Spencer’s throw overthrew the cutoff man. Then came “The Flip.”

Jeter rescued the Yankees by racing into foul territory to retrieve the throw, then pulled off an instinctive flip to catcher Jorge Posada, who tagged the lumbering Jeremy Giambi to keep Oakland off the board.

My favorite Derek Jeter moment was one the happened when he wasn’t even on the field. Before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium.

I don’t subscribe to the theory that throwing a baseball could heal a nation, but keep in mind this was New York just seven weeks after 9/11. The tension was the highest possible for a ceremonial first pitch, but Jeter helped alleviate that.

“I just asked him if he was going to be throwing out the first pitch from the mound or in front of the mound,” Jeter recalled. “I told him, you better throw it from the mound. Otherwise, you’ll get booed. This is Yankee Stadium.”

Bush added, “He’s walking out, and he looks over his shoulder and says, ‘Don’t bounce it, or they’ll boo you.’”

That’s cool under pressure. Classic Jeter.