Deconstructing Derek Jeter's Lameness: A Holistic Perspective

Derek Jeter's career is finally over.

He leaves the game as a banjo-hitting shortstop with negative defensive value on a team that missed the playoffs for a second straight season. His greatest moments happened more than a decade ago. In the last five years, his primary impact on the Yankees has been to block or limit the playing time of their best infield prospects.

So much for going out on top.

The breakdown of Derek Jeter's legacy is already underway. His Hall of Fame case is ironclad, but debate rages on where he stacks up among his contemporaries, as well as past greats.

Informed opinion has never considered Jeter a candidate for greatest shortstop of all time. For the foreseeable future, Honus Wagner will continue to hold that distinction. Even the most sentimental Yankees fans don't regard him the same strata as Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, or DiMaggio.

As for where he rates among players of the past 20 years, his zero MVP's bear testament to the superiority of Pujols, Bonds, and even... A-Rod. 

In the wake of his sappy farewell tour, It's time to rip The Captain apart point by point.

1. He wasn't as good a player as he's made out to be. 

Here, Keith Olberman summarizes the pure baseball arguments against Derek Jeter's status as an all-timer:

The main flaws in Jeter's game:

-His 3,000+ hits will get him into Cooperstown, but it doesn't change that fact that he was a one-dimensional offensive player. He was very good at slapping opposite field singles. For a time, he was even a useful base stealer. In the end, he grades out as a 1/3-tool player.

-He was probably one of the worst defensive players ever. At shortstop, his sloppy fundamentals, and limited range negated many of the runs he produced at the plate.

-Despite his poor defense, he chronically refused to do the right thing and change positions, even with much better options on the roster. 

2. Jeter's 'clutch' reputation is dubious.

-Despite his reputation as a 'clutch' player, most of his great postseason moments are clustered in the first five years of his career. Where was Jeter's 'clutchness' when the Yankees of the 2000's were languishing through years of early playoff exits?

His 'Mr. November' home run has been replayed ad naseum in recent days, but New York lost that World Series. They lost less than two months after September 11th. With an opportunity to help heal a devastated city, The Captain was key in helping the Yankees blow a lead in the 9th inning of Game 7.

Jeter had his opportunity to stem the Arizona rally when Mariano Rivera made an errant throw to second on a bunt. A 'clutch' player would have been able to field the ball for an out, but instead, Jeter was tangled by the runner. The ball passed into center field, and into legend. It would have taken a great play to make that out, but isn't that what Jeter was supposed to provide in the biggest moments?

Taking a broader view, consider his career numbers.

As his only above average skill was hitting for contact, batting average is useful metric to measure his overall 'clutchness.' His postseason batting average of .308 is essentially the same as his .310 career average. In fact, it's probably propped up by missing the playoffs in his last two seasons, when he limped through age and injuries to hit a combined .223 in the regular season.

For all his late-90's highlights, Jeter was the same player at any point in the calendar.


3. Jeter is not the classiest man alive.

To be clear, I think he's a nice guy. However, the arguments that pin him as the embodiment of 'class' and 'doing things the right way' are overstated. These labels are given with the subtext that, 'he's not Alex Rodriguez.'

Context matters. The Yankees are notorious for stocking their roster with unlikable late-career mercenaries. The high salaries and diminishing (often illegally enhanced) play of men like Rodriguez and Roger Clemens only shone a light on Jeter as a positive, high-character individual.

I don't buy it. Just because he isn't a complete asshole, it doesn't make him the second coming of Roberto Clemente.

The Yankees have been a splintered and under performing team since the 2009 World Series. For years now, Alex Rodriguez has hijacked the teams headlines. Robinson Cano was scapegoated for the team's failures despite being its best player, by far. Big-name free agents like Brian McCann and Jacoby Ellsbury have had rough seasons, leading many to question the team's focus and motivation.

If only there were some sage clubhouse figure with the clout and reputation to inspire his team in the dugout while having it's back in the press room...

Not anymore though. Not after 20 years as the poor man's Chipper Jones.

My Brain is Still Cloudy, But I Did Finally Finish a Song. Click Here to Listen

In anticipation of my move to the High Plains, I started working on a cover of a Bob Wills song called 'Brain Cloudy Blues.' Some of you will recognize it as a slight reworking of Wills' standard 'Milk Cow Blues.' I prefer the first verse in 'Brain Cloudy' so I covered it.

I've had this one sitting on my hard drive for a few weeks now. I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the takes or the arrangement. Then again, I never am, so there's no reason to wait any longer.

Of course the track doesn't sound great. It was arranged and recorded whenever I had a minute, using a laptop microphone and whatever gear was handy. The key doesn't suit my voice, nor do I have a deep background in Western Swing.

So what? Excuses are for rich women on diets.

It's time to cut myself a break and release it here and now. Here's the URL.

https://soundcloud.com/honkytonkhero88/brain-cloudy-blues

It was while producing this song that I realized, 'Adam Levine wakes up every morning with no reservations about singing in public. Therefore, I have no reason to doubt myself.'

My biggest takeaway is that singing is a confidence game. The history of pop music is littered with those with 'bad' voices or limited technique who still succeed.

Consider one great singer from the past century. She had a brittle vocal tone which only wore down with age. She had no range, poor projection, and a raspy Baltimore accent. Her name was Billie Holiday.

For a contemporary example, consider Sam Smith's American debut on Saturday Night Live. When I saw it, I first thought, "It's cruel that they put Annie Lennox's addled eunuch butler up there to make an ass of himself."

I still think he sings like an emphysemic duck, but I've come to realize how others could overlook this. He makes his voice work for him and his material. His strained phrasing feeds in to his Sad Girl persona, and builds him up as Lana Del Ray with (maybe) balls. Anyways...

In the final assessment:

What I did well:

-The intro is solid. It was fun to write and record, and I think that comes through.
-Everything is generally in time.
-The vocal track is more confident (insomuch as it's less pensive) than my earlier efforts.

Things to improve on:

-The guitar solo should be tweaked. The first few bars were an attempt at dissonance that just ended up sounding out of key. My guitar parts on the last verse are a more successful experiment with this idea. I also should have been more patient and gone for a cleaner take.
-I need to mind my tuning more carefully.
-I will experiment with recording environments. I'm still figuring out the best acoustic setups in my apartment. In particular, my acoustic guitar parts suffer from bad setup.