It was a perfect scenario, one Yankees fans have seen a thousand times: Yankees trailing by a run in the 8th, tying run at third base with two outs, and Jeter at the plate; the captain worked the count full before nailing a liner with his patented inside out swing that was headed for the right field corner before Magglio Ordonez slid under it to retire the Captain and effectively end the Yankees’ night, leaving Jeter 0-5 on the season.
That at-bat, which capped an 0-5 night for Jeter and dropped his average to .283 for the season to date, has spurred a lot of “Is Jeter done?” handwringing on Yankees blogs.
IYankees offers some troubling statistics:
Jeter’s current line drive rate sits at 12.1%, which is his lowest on record (his career average is 20.5%). The line drives Jeter would normally hit have subsequently turned into extra ground balls, instead, as that rate has increased markedly from a career average in the mid-50’s to 69.8%. Jeter’s fly balls are also down, of course (18.1% compared to a career mark of 23.3%), another result of an inability to put the ball in the air. These items, when evaluated in relation to one another, might spell a decline.
At this point last year he actually produced similar numbers. Through 30 games in 2009 he had 142 PA, same as this year. In that span he hit .266/.338/.406, a wOBA of around .350. That’s a bit better than last year, mainly because of his higher OBP. This year he’s walked a bit less, but has also hit for more power, which somewhat offset each other.
But of course this year is not last year, Jeter is a year older, and while regression analysis presuming reversion to mean may provide some guidance as to what a theoretical player is most likely to do, they don’t foretell the specific future. Yeah, Jeter could finish like he did last year with a .334 batting average, 212 hits after batting better than .350 in the second half. Or, he might continue to hit fewer line drives, more weak grounders. He might continue swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. He might be beginning a late 30s decline. Certainly he looks slower on the basepaths (I don’t think we’ll see too man infield hits for the rest of Jeter’s career) and his range at short appears to have declined in the early going this season, leading me to wonder, even if his batting reverts to career averages over the long haul, what the Yanks are going to do with Jeter once they extend his contract. Are they destined to play out the next four years with an immobile aging shortstop? Or can they find another spot for him (it’s obviously not thrid or first, left field?).
Yankees fans are going to have to begin imagining a future without Jeter, A-rod, Posada, Rivera, and Pettitte. The team has done a fair job adding younger, backbone players over the last few years–Cano, Texieria, Hughes, and Joba, can, in some measure pick up the slack for the aging vets in terms of production if not in terms of leadership. But at some point–for everyone but Rivera, who, appears to be ready to go out with his boots on, still at the top of his game after all these years–the aging vets are going to become albatrosses hanging around the neck of the roster, dragging it down–the way Ortiz, Varitek, and Lowell are weighing on the Boston franchise.
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