Derek Jeter mingles with fans for send off video.

[aceplace57]

I’m not a baseball fan, but certainly have heard of Derek Jeter. He’s going out after 20 years on a high note. I like this sendoff video.

How will he rank among the greats in baseball? I assume he’s headed for the Hall of Fame?

Derek Jeter stops by Stan’s, surprises fans on River Ave. outside Yankee...

Set to Sinatra’s “My Way,” Gatorade debuted its farewell ad to Jeter online on Thursday. The 90-second, black-and-white ad shows the 40-year-old shortstop roll past a newsstand — with the Daily News prominently displayed — in his chaufferred car before asking the driver to stop and let Jeter walk the rest of the way up River Avenue to Yankee Stadium.

“It was sort of a way to thank [the fans] for what they’ve meant to me,” Jeter said of the tribute, similar to Nike’s “Respect” ad from earlier in the year.

“It was a fun experience. It didn’t take long – I was out there for about 30 minutes.”

[aceplace57]

ABC report gives more information.

In an interview with ABC News, Rendino said he had a “heads up” that Jeter would walk into the bar, but “couldn’t tell anyone.”

“The few [employees] I could tell, I was emotional telling them because I was so excited,” Rendino said.

Yankee fans in the bar at the time were “shocked” and some didn’t even know how to react, Rendino recalled.

Jeter was supposed to spend only a few minutes at Stan’s, but ended up hanging out for about 15 minutes to speak with customers. At one point, Rendino said, the All-Star shortstop “requested to go behind the bar.”

“Fans feel like they are part of his goodbye,” he said.

Molly Carter, senior director of marketing at Gatorade, was with Jeter in July on a 97-degree when the commercial was filmed before a Yankees home game. Carter knew the commercial was a success once Jeter and the small film crew arrived at Stan’s.

“That’s when we knew we came up with something good. Derek Jeter was so natural and genuine,” Carter told ABC News.

[BlankSlate]

Never heard of him.

[aceplace57]

Quite a record.

Derek Jeter

A five-time World Series champion, Jeter is regarded as a central figure of the Yankees’ success of the late 1990s and early 2000s for his hitting, baserunning, fielding, and leadership. He is the Yankees’ all-time career leader in hits (3,448), games played (2,725), stolen bases (357), and at bats (11,119).[1] His accolades include 14 All-Star selections, five Gold Glove Awards, five Silver Slugger Awards, two Hank Aaron Awards, and a Roberto Clemente Award. Jeter is the all-time MLB leader in hits by a shortstop, and the 28th player to reach 3,000 hits.

[Oakminster]

@aceplace57

I assume he’s headed for the Hall of Fame?

Yup. He’s probably going in on his first ballot.

[Bullitt]

@Oakminster

Yup. He’s probably going in on his first ballot.

Definitely.

First ballot Hall of Famers are the real Hall of Famers. Everyone else in the HOF are merely great.

[Telemark]

@aceplace57

He’s going out after 20 years on a high note.

There’s no way this season is a high note. The farewell tour is nice but it’s been a pretty miserable season for both him and the Yankees.

And yes, he’s a first round HOF’er.

[Loach]

@Telemark

There’s no way this season is a high note. The farewell tour is nice but it’s been a pretty miserable season for both him and the Yankees.

And yes, he’s a first round HOF’er.

Relatively miserable for him. Well below average but not miserable. Last year when he only played in 17 games was miserable. At least he didn’t go out riding the bench.

The Yankees are in serious trouble. In the past 20 years they have been successful with a blend of home grown talent and well placed free agents and trades. Lately they have had mediocre farm system talent and manage to pick up free agents right after they peak. Combine that with lots of bad luck with injuries and you get what you have now.

[jtur88]

In the case of Jeter, you have to ignore the statistics, because he was much more than a package of statistics. He is one of the rare players who brought intangibles to a level of greatness.

Statistically, here is a list of the ten players who came closest to Jeter, according to a complicated “similarity score” formula worked out by Bill James:

Craig Biggio (823)
Paul Molitor (805) *
Roberto Alomar (789) *
Robin Yount (786) *
Charlie Gehringer (756) *
Johnny Damon (729)
Ivan Rodriguez (723)
Joe Morgan (723) *
Ted Simmons (718)
Frankie Frisch (716) *

• = Hall of Fame, with Biggio not yet eligible for the HoF.

Personally, I am getting weary of the New York Yankees parading a player around every year doing a Farewell Tour (Rivera, then Jeter). Who will it be next year, A-Rod? Ichiro?

[Ike_Witt]

A-Rod would not get anywhere near the sort of reception that Jeter is getting on a farewell tour.

[etv78]

Jtur: Biggio has been on the ballot 2 years.

[Loach]

@jtur88

Personally, I am getting weary of the New York Yankees parading a player around every year doing a Farewell Tour (Rivera, then Jeter). Who will it be next year, A-Rod? Ichiro?

It’s not the Yankees. It’s MLB. Do you think the Yankees can force anyone to give their players gifts? There are few players that have that kind of universal respect. It just so happens it was the Yankees two years in a row. Before that it was Chipper Jones and Cal Ripkin. It is certainly not a Yankee thing.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@jtur88

In the case of Jeter, you have to ignore the statistics, because he was much more than a package of statistics. He is one of the rare players who brought intangibles to a level of greatness.

I tend to be very skeptical of “intangibles”. In the case of Jeter, ISTM that his “intangibles” are:

[ol]
[li]A lot of great teamates[/li][li]Not being a jerk[/li][/ol]
What else have you got?

[ISiddiqui]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I tend to be very skeptical of “intangibles”. In the case of Jeter, ISTM that his “intangibles” are:

[ol]
[li]A lot of great teamates[/li][li]Not being a jerk[/li][/ol]
What else have you got?

Agreed.

Though, to be fair, he’s good statistically, just not as good as Yankee fans like to make him out to be. Jeter is 88th all time in Wins Above Replacement, which is actually fairly impressive. Though Adrian Beltre is 68th and is only 35… I wonder if we’ll have this sort of pomp and circumstance for him.

And A-Rod is 17th all time in WAR, though the juicing will hurt him (as it did with Bonds, 4th all time, and Clemens, 8th all time).

[jtur88]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I tend to be very skeptical of “intangibles”. In the case of Jeter, ISTM that his “intangibles” are:

[ol]
[li]A lot of great teamates[/li][li]Not being a jerk[/li][/ol]
What else have you got?

I’ve got that I hate the Yankees with a singular core passion, but I admire Jeter every time I see him play and I wish he played for somebody else.

[ISiddiqui]

@jtur88

I’ve got that I hate the Yankees with a singular core passion, but I admire Jeter every time I see him play and I wish he played for somebody else.

But that also applies to, for example, Paul O’Neill, but I don’t have any pretension that he’s better than his stats.

[jtur88]

There are hundreds of intangibles in the field that do not reflect statistically. Knowing when you can advance to second on a ball in the dirt that the catcher blocks, and thus avoid a double play on the next hitter, that’s an intangibie that does not show up in the stats. Except for the GIDP totals for the following batter, and make him the “great player” that surrounds our star with intangibles. Being positioned in the field so the batter chooses not to try to pull the ball, that’s an intangible that’s not in the stats. Outfielders with a great arm have no assists, but they hold a hundred runners. That’s an intangible.

The difference between a .250 hitter and a .300 hitter is one hit a week. A player who, once a week, benefits his team with an intangible, has offset the difference between batting .250 and batting .300.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@jtur88

There are hundreds of intangibles in the field that do not reflect statistically.

I agree to that. The difficult part is identifying who has those intangibles, since they are not measured statistically.

What I’m saying is that since Jeter has been parts of winning teams for a long time, and has come off as a pretty decent person, people like to attribute to him these intangibles, even if there may be little basis for doing so.

[Marley23]

Some of the tributes to Jeter have been great. I enjoy this video and ‘Re2pect’ was even better. It’s also gone over the top, sure- just as it did with Mariano Rivera, who was also an all-time great. This is going to happen with every retiring great player from now on, I guess, which will only get more ridiculous. And it could be embarrassing because if the Yankees don’t improve next year they might have to bring him back just so he can retire all over again to keep the fans interested. As far as his intangibles, I think this is instructive: a lot has been made of Jeter’s clutch qualities, and he provides a nice illustration of what a clutch player actually looks like. His career batting average is .309 in the regular season. In the playoffs it’s… .308. On base percentage: .377 regular season, .374 playoffs. Slugging percentage: .439 vs. .465. OPS: .817 vs. .838.

So basically, Jeter built his reputation as a clutch player by being about as good in the playoffs as he was in the regular season. That’s very good since in the playoffs you face better competition. And not that you can quantify this, but the guy does have a knack for memorable moments. There’s the 5-for-5 game that brought him his 3,000th hit, and then last night he hit a home run in the first game of his last homestand. It was only his fourth of the year, and his first at Yankee Stadium.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Marley23

As far as his intangibles, I think this is instructive: a lot has been made of Jeter’s clutch qualities, and he provides a nice illustration of what a clutch player actually looks like. His career batting average is .309 in the regular season. In the playoffs it’s… .308. On base percentage: .377 regular season, .374 playoffs. Slugging percentage: .439 vs. .465. OPS: .817 vs. .838.

So basically, Jeter built his reputation as a clutch player by being about as good in the playoffs as he was in the regular season. That’s very good since in the playoffs you face better competition.

I agree in general with the last sentence, but it’s not so simple. Because it’s possible that the Yankees tended to get into the postseason more often when Jeter was in his prime.

You need to compare his numbers in the postseason against his numbers in the regular season for those same years.

And not that you can quantify this, but the guy does have a knack for memorable moments. There’s the 5-for-5 game that brought him his 3,000th hit, and then last night he hit a home run in the first game of his last homestand. It was only his fourth of the year, and his first at Yankee Stadium.

Stick around long enough and you’ll have a lot of memorable moments. Also a lot of non-memorable moments, but people will remember the memorable moments more, on account of them being memorable.