Would the Yankees have made the playoffs this season without Derek Jeter?
Let’s start with a disclaimer. The following words are by no means a judgment of the Yankees’ decision to keep Jeter on the roster in 2014. That wasn’t really a decision, and even if it were, there’s a justification for letting a legend have one last lap around the league. If you would rather not read about how bad Jeter has been this season, don’t click below to read more.
Derek Jeter is batting .255/.303/.304, 30 percent below league average according to wRC+. Even in a down year for offense, that slugging percentage is the worst in the American League among qualified hitters. Fangraphs doesn’t frown upon his defense as much as they have in recent years, docking him 1.3 runs for his efforts. Baseball Reference sees him as having been 10 runs below average this year, but gives half of that back in positional adjustment runs. All told, the two agree that he’s having a replacement-level season (-0.2 WAR per fangraphs, +0.1 per B-R).
There are worse players getting regular reps in the big leagues, even on contending teams. Billy Butler and Eric Hosmer have combined for -0.7 fWAR in key roles for Kansas City. Torii Hunter’s been right around replacement level for the Tigers. In theory, a readily-promotable AAA guy wouldn’t have offered any more production in the Bronx this year.
But is replacement level really relevant for the Yankees? Jeter made $12 million this season. Jhonny “sic” Peralta signed with St. Louis in the offseason at an average annual value of $13.25 million. Peralta’s been worth 5.3 or 5.8 WAR this season, depending on whom you believe.
Would adding Peralta in Jeter’s stead have guaranteed the Yankees another 5 or 6 wins this year? Of course not. WAR’s not that simple. But I’d guess it would have been worth at least that, because Peralta’s aura wouldn’t have pressured Joe Girardi into hitting him second all year, as Jeter’s did. He may have landed there anyway, as Peralta’s 124 wRC+ is better than any regular on the Yankees this season, but here’s a guess that early in the season, Jacoby Ellsbury, Mark Teixeira, and Brian McCann would have moved up a spot, adding 5 to 15 PAs apiece. None of those guys was Mike Trout this year, but taking 30 or 40 PA away from Jeter and giving them to anyone with a pulse would have added some runs. It’s one thing to employ a replacement-level player; most teams do. It’s another thing altogether to give 600+ plate appearances in the heart of the order to a 40-year-old who’s hit worse than Billy Hamilton.
Five more wins would put the Yankees 81-64, still five games behind the Orioles, but just ahead of Oakland for the first Wild Card spot. Furthermore, had New York been 2 or 3 games better at the July trade deadline, they might have dealt in the David Price/Jeff Samardzija market, rather than the Brandon McCarthy/Chase Headley discount bin (though I’ll admit those acquisitions have paid off).
Acquiring Peralta is an extreme example, but Asdrubal Cabrera may have been available in trade. If the Yankees had signed him in March, Stephen Drew might have played more like the 3.5-win guy he was in 2013 than the no-bat, misused glove midseason acquisition he turned out to be. Neither of these guys would have guaranteed a playoff game in the Bronx, but they would have redistributed those wasted plate appearances and perhaps brought meaningful baseball in September.
Ok, enough Jeter bashing. Everyone ages and the few of us who are fit enough to play into their forties deserve to do what they love for the team they carried for decades.
Let’s talk about Mariano Rivera.
In Rivera’s farewell season in 2013, the Yankees’ bullpen had a 3.66 ERA, 20th in MLB. Their 3.91 FIP was 26th, as despite striking out a batter an inning all season, the relievers combined to surrender 1.21 homers per nine. In 2014, Dellin Betances stepped up with a prime-Rivera year. David Robertson (2.77 ERA/2.34 FIP) has approximated Rivera’s 2013 numbers (2.11 ERA/3.05 FIP), and the setup team of Shawn Kelley and Adam Warren has been solid. The relief crew has worked a 3.56 ERA, 15th in MLB, and a 3.51 FIP, which ranks 12th. The whole bullpen could be bought for less than the $10k the Yankees paid Rivera in 2013.
Basically, the Yankees lost nothing by exiling the best reliever ever, even after a reasonably productive final season.
Again, I’m not taking a shot at Rivera. Rather, I’m ruminating on the relative values of past greatness and youth on a baseball roster. Jeter and Rivera are probably two of the 100 best players ever to play the game and were central to a Yankee dynasty that won five championships and made the postseason every year from 1996 through 2007. During their farewell tours, they combined for 0.7 WAR over two seasons and their team would have been better off (or at least no worse) without them.
Let’s talk about David Ortiz.
At 38, Big Papi can still hit. His .263/.358/.511 line in 2014 is a far cry from his peak, but it’s 33% better than the league average and ranks fourth in the league among regular designated hitters. Ortiz’s presence in the middle of the lineup has been a fountain in an endless desert. His 32 home runs are almost a third of Boston’s 110, and his 99 RBI nearly match the totals of the next two guys on the team leaderboard (Mike Napoli has 55; Dustin Pedroia 53).
The future outlook, though, is a bit more complicated. Ortiz put up 5 straight .400 wOBA seasons in his prime, then struggled for two seasons (.372 and .342 in 2008 and 2009, respectively) before finding his swing again in 2010 and 2011 and raking at an elite level (.425 wOBA) in 2012. Since then, he’s aged as expected, dropping to .400 in 2013 and .367 in 2014. It would be foolish to assume that a 39-year-old Papi will bounce back next year, or even create a reasonable facsimile of 2014’s numbers.
You may have heard that the 2015 Red Sox have a few candidates vying for three outfield spots. Shane Victorino and Yoenis Cespedes each have one year left on their contracts. Jackie Bradley’s elite centerfield defense might be worth waiting for his bat. Mookie Betts is the future, whether in center, right, or on some other team’s infield. Brock Holt played well enough this year to warrant a look at some position in 2015. Rusney Castillo is on the way. Daniel Nava and Allen Craig struggled to various degrees in 2014, but were both great hitters in 2013 and could bounce back. Meanwhile, first baseman Mike Napoli has a degenerative hip condition that makes him look like a future DH for some team.
Doesn’t it seem like the Red Sox might be better off parting with Ortiz and using the DH spot the way other AL teams have, resting some outfield legs while keeping good bats in the lineup? An outfield of Cespedes, Castillo, Betts, and, Bradley, with the former two working in and out of the DH spot, is pretty appealing. Napoli could get a break from defense on occasion and Holt could fill a superutility role.
But it won’t happen. Ortiz is a Boston legend on par with Yaz and not far short of Ted Williams (maybe even ahead of the Splinter, given his postseason heroics). Red Sox fans are likely to watch a past-his-prime Papi continue to fade away in 2015, providing a big homer here and there, but probably costing the team a win or two while one of the aforementioned outfielders rots on the bench or succeeds on another roster. Maybe he’ll decide in 2015 that 2106 is his last year and the Red Sox will decide that he’s worth a Jeterian farewell tour, in which he’ll play below replacement level, but still bat in the middle of an otherwise-potent lineup.
The Angels have the best record in baseball this year. Their best player is 22 and their oldest key contributor is 34. The Orioles are running away with the AL East. Their best player (Adam Jones) is 29 and their oldest key contributor (Nelson Cruz) is 34. The Nationals have the best record in the National League behind 24-year-old Anthony Rendon and the Harper-Strasburg core they built through the draft. None of these teams is running out an over-the-hill superstar and feeling compelled to keep testing him in high-leverage situations. Other older players like Paul Konerko, Raul Ibanez, and Jason Giambi accepted reduced roles in what look like their final campaigns.
Aging is cruel. Smart baseball teams are avoiding long-term contracts and putting younger players in positions to put their skills to use while they’re still sharp. The Red Sox and Yankees are smart baseball teams, but sometimes superstars don’t give you a choice.
Maybe Jeter wanted to see the Royals in the playoffs before he retired.
First poster! It’s easy to denigrate the Yankees for running Jeter out at SS all year, but – what was their alternative? Who is in their farm system, and what MLB shortstops were available, not just free agents (Peralta?) but possible trades?
Then again, the Yankees kind of dug themselves into this hole when they gave him the extension after the 2010 season. They had to know that if Jeter was healthy, it would be very difficult to bench him, or try to play him anywhere but SS. I do agree that he should’ve moved out the #2 BOP a while ago. He started out the first couple months this year hitting surprisingly non-terrible, but he gradually slid down to just above replacement-level.
It’s easy to focus on Jeter, and he has unquestionably been a drag. But I think the Yankees made a nuanced decision that didn’t pay off. First of all, they couldn’t say no to him after the lost to injury season. Second, they probably thought he would be somewhat better (at least with the bat) than he has been. But third, they almost certainly felt they could cope with sub-par numbers from the shortstop position because their new acquisitions (Elsbury, Beltran, McCann, Tanaka) plus a returning Texiera, plus fewer injuries, would make the difference. Obviously, they were wrong, but I’m not sure one could reasonably have predicted that they would be that wrong. It’s really shocking how poorly many on the team have played, and the injuries to the pitching staff (they will have only one starter with more than 18 starts) have been very substantial. Sure, they would have been better with a better shortstop, but (and I’m not being snide here) Stephen Drew is looking more like Ray Oyler every day. The suggestion they sign Peralta should be viewed in the context of the A-Rod litigation–they couldn’t. Blame Jeter for not actively accepting a smaller role-I’m in complete agreement. But this is a team collapse.
Mike, Stephen Drew’s bat is looking dead, but in 39 games with the Red Sox, he was worth positive 0.2 WAR because of his brilliant glovework. He’s been negative with the Yankees largely because he can’t make the same difference with his glove at second base. I realize the folly of citing 40-game UZR numbers at two positions, but in this case, I think WAR fits the narrative.
The 2013 postseason was a great example of what we can expect from Drew at this stage in his career. He looked totally lost at the plate, struck out a ton, but saved a bunch of key runs with his glove and knocked a homer in the clinching game. I’m confident he could’ve had a better season than Jeter if the Yankees had signed him before opening day, played him at shortstop every day, and batted him ninth.
Brian, the Yankees could never have signed Drew before opening day without a large dollar multi-year commitment. He wasn’t going to take a one year deal because of the QO. I do think Drew is better than he’s played and perhaps a full spring training would have made 2014 a year closer to career norms, with age regression. But he has 261 plate appearances this year and he’s been gruesome. The Yankees have Brendan Ryan for that, and for a small fraction of the economic commitment.
Ok, so I look at this completely differently. Three facts of life I think you really need to consider further
1) You can’t buy young talent. In general, you can’t call up the angels and offer them $50m for the rights to Trout (even if you pay him from there on out). Rules stuff aside, they’d laugh at you. His rights are worth more than that. I’m talking about the right to buy a seat at a stadium kind of thing. The seat sure looks like a great value at $100 when you can sell it for $450 but really, there’s a cost in getting the RIGHTS that’s not factored in. The Yankees loved Trout if you read much about that draft. The thing is though, the angels picked earlier. You can’t buy draft picks. The draft system we have was created for that very reason. Sure you can put more scouts out there than most but the process is CREATED so teams can get in the position of paying Mike Trout 500k for 10 WAR in 2012, lets keep that in mind. It’s not like he went up for the highest bidder as a free agent. You shouldn’t compare him to free agents value per dollar in the first place.
2) The yankees have money to spend and they spend it. The relative value of salary to them and other teams are different. The Seattle Mariners offered Robinson Cano $24 million dollars per. The yankees reportedly offered more but for fewer years but lets say they matched the offer. That $24 million represents about 10% of the yankees total salary and about 20% of the Mariners total salary. If you want to talk about “value”, you aught to consider that. The mariners in terms of their financial capabilities offered FAR FAR more than the Yankees. To use your example, the cardinals put far more of their financial eggs in the Peralta bucket than the yankees did in the Jeter bucket.
3) Young players play better than old players but old players often cost you nothing other than money. Young players have other costs, like trading away prospects etc, and can be much more expensive than you might think. You see this occasionally when you get into player to be named laters or cash considerations. How much is a prospect or young MLB player actually worth in terms of actual payroll dollars? For example, if you want Mike Trout, you could certainly get him. You just offer to buy every free agent the angels desire and then trade them to the angels eathing the salary of all palyers involved. There is roughly a dollar amount of how much you’d have to spend to make this fair and that, frankly, is what the angels are “paying” for trout. Not just his salary.
These numbers are hidden but all teams have specific numbers in mind when they talk about players. Trade a young guy for an equivalent veteran and the team that’s paying the salary can excise talent. Team A trades young guy and pays $10m in salary for team B’s veteran you have a $10m prospect credit to exchange (assuming equivalent talent).
The yankees lost their pick this year but beyond that complication a lot of free agents only cost money. You don’t have to pay in talent, which as we all know is the REAL key to winning. Bringing in a 30 something year old veteran, or re-signing one, costs you nothing but money. Free agents are the only things you can get without giving up talent. This is so unfair that the entire compensation system was created to make the dollars even less valuable and less of a real indication on how much of the organization’s resources are invested in a player. Spending 5% of your payroll (even if it’s $10m) on a left fielder you’re going to use for a year or two and then dump that costs you no talent to get? That really doesn’t need much WAR to pay off. Using a first round pick on a guy and nurturing him through the minors and are counting on to produce before you have to pay him because you can’t afford to pay his going rate is a huge organizational focus! Which one of those guy’s failures is going to cause more damage to an organization?
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It gets said a lot that the best way is to bring up talent. Of course it is! Nobody debates that. To say it is missing the point entirely. Everybody would love to have a AAA stud they could call up and pay peanuts. They’d happily pay tens of millions of dollars for it if they could. That’s not really the choice teams have in front of them though, which is much more about the rights to pay the talent than the actual salaries involved. The guy having to pay $2000 (and/or years and years of patient waiting) for the rights to buy 8 home game tickets for $100 that are really worth much more certainly doesn’t have a cost that’s best described as “I paid $100 for this seat”. No, you paid 40 years of season ticket holding and a license fee and never ONCE said no when they wanted your money. That’s your cost, not the $100.
Free agent vs free agent is another matter and maybe that’s more what you want to talk about but I think understanding the relative cost to a team for a player is amazingly poorly reflected in a salary number is an important context.
“You can’t buy young talent.” Actually you can via the international market (Abreu, Puig, Tanaka). Furthermore you can acquire it via trade. Looking at my Indians, many of the best players was acquired via trade when the player was still in the minors or while they were still transitioning to the majors (Santana, Kluber, Bauer, Gomes, Brantely, Carrasco).
Of course it’s impossible to acquire these sort of players when you’re giving long-term contracts to players age 30+. You’re investing in a declining market. No one wants Rodriguez, Sabathia, etc.
“The Yankees have money to spend and they spend it”. Just because they have money to spend doesn’t mean they’re spending it wisely. Honestly, I’m not really sure what your point is here.
“Old players often cost you nothing more than money”. They actually cost you a lot more than that. For one thing, they drastically reduce your roster flexibility. What do you do with an old player, whose on a long-term contract, and not living up to that contract (or gets injured)? You’re stuck with that player. You can’t trade them. You could theoretically release them but you’ll have to keep paying them. Young players, on the other hand, can be sent back to the minors if they’re underperforming. Or can easily be traded for another valuable asset.
“Everybody would love to have a AAA stud they could call up and pay peanuts.”
Again, look at Cleveland. Guys like Kluber, Brantley, Gomes, Carrasco, Salazar, House etc. were hardly AAA studs. Sometimes young players surprise you in a positive way. Old players rarely do that.
Honestly, I have no idea how Yankee fans can root for the current team. What exactly makes most of them Yankees? Is just wearing the uniform all it takes???
@7/David P;
“Is just wearing the uniform all it takes???” – BINGO!! – as Jerry Seinfeld famously observed:
“We’re just cheering for laundry!”
As fans, many of us love to knock the highest-payroll teams (usually the Yankees, but often others) as little more than teams of mercenaries, high-priced players acquired from other teams that can’t afford them anymore. Of course, when Most Desirable Player X becomes available on the open market through trade/ free agency, we often hope our team can get that player, regardless of cost -it’s NOT OUR MONEY, right?
So to answer your question – yes, wearing the Yankees uniform IS all it takes to be a Yankee.
I suspect the Yankees calculated (correctly) that they would not be a championship team this year, with or without Jeter. So, why put your fans in an uproar and create a season-long distraction by keeping Derek on the bench.
Yes, they’ve likely sacrificed some wins by playing him almost everyday, but even if they had managed to squeak into the playoffs with someone else at short, I think it would be a very long shot for them to take the pennant. OTOH, long shot or not, it is a chance they won’t get this year, barring a few miracles.
Incidentally, at 575 PAs with 18 games to go, it would seem that Jeter should finish somewhere (from 4th to 6th) among these players with the most PAs in an age 40+ season.
Generated 9/12/2014.
Jeter, though, will likely break George Brett’s mark of 612 PA in a final season aged 40+.
I mentioned recently that Jeter has a chance to break Honus Wagner’s record for most hits as a 40+ SS.
Well done. One of the problems with number is that they don’t take into account managing people. It’s easy to say, “This guy stinks, get rid of him. But business is more complicated than that. A running a baseball team, whether as the manager, general manager, or owner, is a business.
Interesting topic though I will take exception to the thought that Ortiz approaches Teddy Ballgame as a Boston legend.
Bill, Ortiz is maybe half the player Williams was, but his legend includes a whole lot of October fireworks. I wasn’t around to witness the fans’ reaction to Williams, but it seems his prickly personality (at least during his playing days) was diametrically opposed to Papi’s ear-to-ear grin and lust for the Fenway Park microphone. It’s completely subjective, and it may seem foolish in 50 years that anyone compared Ortiz to Williams, but I have to think the average New Englander right now is higher on Ortiz than the average New Englander was on Williams in the late fifties.
Ortiz’ legendary post season career and championships are worth plenty.
He seems to be producing just fine for now. 10 months ago he was s world series MVP. I think you are spot on about jeter but i think ortiz deserves more credit for now. He would be the best hitter on most teams including some playoff teams.
Wanted to make a point about WAR, Otiz, Ford, Jeter, and the Hall of Fame. I’ve been arguing that Ford’s lifetime WAR is unfairly reduced largely by an imperfect evaluation of the fielding stats of his teammates. What are Boston fans going to say 6-7 years from now? The often maligned Jeter is at 71.4. Ford is at 57.3 Ortiz is 47.7. He may be legend, but it’s still 47.7. Edgar Martinez? 68.3.
Mike, are you suggesting that WAR is unfair to Ortiz? As a measure of regular season value, I would disagree. He’s a great hitter, an awful baserunner, and brings no defensive value. Edgar was a better hitter with defensive value early in his career. Jeter was a very good hitter who ran well and played an important position. I think WAR gets it right, within a few points.
Ortiz’s Hall of Fame case won’t be built on WAR alone. Hall voters have recognized one-dimensional greatness before, both on the offensive side (Harmon Killebrew, Frank Thomas) and the defensive (Rabbit Maranville, Bill Mazeroski). Ortiz also has 17 postseason homers and 87 postseason hits, about 100 of which were walkoffs.
I like to start Hall of Fame conversations with WAR. They shouldn’t end there too.
Byran, I don’t think WAR is unfair to Ortiz, for exactly the reasons you state. I thought WAR was unfair to Ford, because it relies on an imperfect evaluation of Ford’s team’s fielding stats to deflate his record. I think Ortiz is going to get voted in for all the reasons you state, and in spite of the one-dimensionality of his talents and the (possible) PED connection. But Ortiz getting in before Edgar (who is at 25% of the BBWAA voters) seems to me to be a great injustice.
@15;
To paraphrase Mae West “Fairness has nothing to do with it”.
High Pockets Kelly and Jim Bottomley are in the HOF, while Jeff Bagwell and Keith Hernandez are not; Lloyd Waner and Earl Coombs are in the HOF while Kenny Lofton and Cesar Cedeno are not; do I need to go on?
Ortiz hasn’t even retired yet, let alone been on the HOF ballot, so let’s hold off on any Ortiz vs. Edgar Martinez HOF vote comparisons for a while, at least till we have actual vote totals to compare. Martinez has a decent HOF argument but major negatives; his HOF percentages of 25%-36% over five years seem to be a fair reflection of that.
Jimbo, Ortiz is currently 31st in the majors in wRC+. 22 teams, including every playoff contender except the Royals and A’s, have someone ahead of him. More to the point, he’s about to turn 39. Frank Thomas had a similar season to 2014 Ortiz at 38 (139 wRC+), then dropped off at 39 (127) and was done (101) at 40. Gary Sheffield was good at 38 (2.8 WAR), then below replacement level at 39 and 40.
Does Ortiz deserve “more credit for now”. Sure, he’s been great. But his decline is inevitable. The same is true of all of us.
I’m not sure we can use 76-72, the Yankees’ current record, as their base record in this hypothetical exercise. They have been outscored by 29 runs, meaning they’d only be around 70-78 if their luck had been neutral. If you attribute the extra 6 wins to Jeter’s intangibles (not included in the WAR calculations!), you’d have a push.
This is two straight seasons where the Yankees have been outscored, but yet still play .500, comfortably beating their expect records. I suspect it has something to do with their late-inning bullpen. In 2013, Robertson to Rivera gave the Yankees a strong closing duo. In 2014, Betances to Robertson is even better. This past few games have illustrated the counter of that, where the Yankees have lost three of four games in the 9th or later because their normally lock-down late inning bullpen has failed.
Good point, eorns. Jeter’s calm eyes probably motivate hitters to sequence better and make all Girardi’s bullpen moves pay off.
Seriously, though, I don’t think keeping vs. trashing Jeter was ever an agenda item at a meeting of the Yankee brass, but even if it were, nobody said “we’ll probably be 76-72 in early September if he’s awful and 78-70 if he’s average”. There were probably 15+ roster spots worth dissecting and starting shortstop wasn’t one of them.
Mike, I agree that the excellent pen had a lot to do with the Yankees overachieving, and I think Girardi’s employed the relievers well, but the four good ones (Betances, Robertson, Kelley, and Warren) have been used a lot (102 1/3 IP in 54 games since the break), and were bound to break down sometime.
Yes, and further to that, while the Yankees were able to put their rotation back together after losing four of their five starters early in the year, the overall impact of the moves is still being felt. For one, they had to move some of the bullpen arms into rotation, specifically long-man Phelps. Other of the replacement arms held up well, but they didn’t go as deep into the game, and then others (Nuno, for example) would implode. All of this caused extra stress.
When I think back on the Red Sox September collapse in 2011, one of the main issues was their bullpen, but that’s only because their starters were failing. Eventually, they all failed.
Now what any of this has to do with Derek Jeter, I don’t know. : -)
I think this exercise could be applied to just about anyone on the Yankees this year short of Gardner and Elllsbury. In a year of bad, the Yankees offense has been extra bad. Still have no idea how they’re above .500.