The Numbers Don't Lie

The Numbers Don't Lie will be a weekly shootout between two of the games similar or maybe even rival players. The first edition will be a shootout between two players that began their careers as rivals as two of the top SS in the game. Now these two are teammates and make up one of the best offensive tandems of any infield's right side in baseball. The offensive dominance of these two is unchallanged although different types of hitters each has been one of the best baseball has seen in the last decade. So the subject of this article is not a showdown between Jeter and A Rod's offense, but of their defense. I know that I am not alone in saying that I felt Jeter should have moved to 2B or 3B when A Rod came to town instead of A Rod moving to third. With that being said lets set the scene and take a look at the numbers.

Once George Steinbrenner had managed to manafacture a deal for the game's highest paid player the only thing left was to find a place for him in the field. Now first off this is not the least bit surprising to see from Steinbrenner who constantly adds the most expensive and sometimes talented players availiable with little regard to the makeup of his club. You might be thinking, wait a second?, isn't Brian Cashman calling the shots from a baseball operations perspective? Techinically you would be right, but we all know George always gets his way. Anyway, back to matter at hand, where does A-rod fit in. Well his natural position is SS, however the "face of the Yankees", whatever that means, Deter Jeter already holds down the fort at short. It is learned early on in any introductory economics course that people are believed to act rationally. A rational individual would tend to gather all possible information and analyze, if only crudely, each of the possible outcomes of the decision and their consequences. This was simply not the case in the Yankees front office after A-rod was acquired.

Since this was neglected at the time I will attempted to due justice to the defensive comparison of Jeter and A-rod by making use of the great work of John Dewan in his book The Fielding Bible. The sample space for this showdown will be from 2003, A Rod's last year in Texas, and 2005, his second year as the Yankees 3B. From a scouting perspective when analyzing Derek Jeter one is inclined to see an above average athlete with great hands, an average arm, and significantly below average range. This perception is backed up by Dewan's stats that show that during our sample space Jeter made 80 plays less than expected when the ball was hit to one side or the other and made 11 more plays than expected when hit right at him. These numbers yield a total of 79 plays less than were expected of an average SS, ranking him as the 30th starting SS in the Majors. Lets turn our attention to A-rod. In 2003, his only year as a SS in our sample, he made 11 more plays in total than was expected and ranked 5th that year among starting SSs.

As an aside in 2004 and 2005 Jeter won the gold glove award at SS in the AL. He was ranked by Dewan system to be the 31st overall starting SS each year, EXCUSE ME!!!

So again I ask why not move the middle infielder with limited range to 3B and keep one of the MLs best defenders at SS?