Derek Jeter mingles with fans for send off video.

[Loach]

@Marley23

It’s only memorable because you remember it. Or something. Anyway, yes, it was a great ending. It would’ve been far better if the game had meant anything, but taken on its own terms as his last game at the Stadium, it was excellent.

And better than what the plan was. Girardi planned to send Jeter out for a lap around the stadium and when he was out in the out field Joe Torre, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Gerald Williams and Tino Martinez were going to line up at home plate and greet him into retirement. But with the walkoff RBI he just let it go that way.

[Zakalwe]

@RickJay

The important point, perhaps, is that this stuff is not intangible. These things are all measured and accounted for if one checks out the really good sites like Fangraphs; they build in in to their assessment of Jeter’s value.

Yeah, but if you look at his NGWNSPFTMVTIBADIPDWAATWBWHAAED/SC* score, it’s off the charts!

• Nice guy with no scandals playing for the most visible team in baseball and doing it pretty darn well at a time when baseball was having an almost existential drug/scandal crisis**

** aka the HE PUTS ASSES IN SEATS metric.

[RaftPeople]

I wonder if people’s impression of Jeter is enhanced by the general negative impression of A-Rod. If seems that Jeter is elevated because he’s good and he’s not a douche like A-Rod.

[Mister_Rik]

@Ike_Witt

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

A-Rod is a dick. We Seattle fans would be happier than hell to see A-Rod disappear into obscurity.

@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.

As a Seattle Mariners fan, I hate Jeter. I’ve lost count of how many times, over the last 20 years, that a Mariners-Yankees game entered the 9th inning with a close score, either tied, or with the Mariners in the lead, only to have Jeter come up to bat and win it for the Yankees with a home run or a clutch hit.

But as a baseball fan, I love Jeter. Derek Jeter is a class act, and a representative of what baseball is all about. If I had a vote, that vote would be “YES” for the Hall of Fame.

Right behind Edgar Martinez.

[BlankSlate]

@Mister_Rik

As a Seattle Mariners fan, I hate Jeter. I’ve lost count of how many times, over the last 20 years, that a Mariners-Yankees game entered the 9th inning with a close score, either tied, or with the Mariners in the lead, only to have Jeter come up to bat and win it for the Yankees with a home run or a clutch hit.

To Yankees fans, you just described Edgar Martinez. The guy was a monster, I freaking hated him. Great ballplayer.
ETA: Career .418 OBP, career .933 OPS, career 147 OPS+. DH is a position, the greats should be in the Hall. Ortiz will be going in eventually; Martinez should be in first.

[Mister_Rik]

@BlankSlate

To Yankees fans, you just described Edgar Martinez. The guy was a monster, I freaking hated him. Great ballplayer.
ETA: Career .418 OBP, career .933 OPS, career 147 OPS+. DH is a position, the greats should be in the Hall. Ortiz will be going in eventually; Martinez should be in first.

Heh. From Edgar’s Wikipedia entry:

“Retired Yankee great Mariano Rivera, when asked whether there was anyone he was afraid to face, said that he was never afraid, but “I will put it like this: The only guy that I didn’t want to face, when a tough situation comes, was Edgar Martínez. The reason is because I couldn’t get him out. (laughs) I couldn’t get him out. It didn’t matter how I threw the ball. I couldn’t get him out. Oh, my god, he had more than my number. He had my breakfast, lunch and dinner. He got everything from me. Oh, my god, yeah. I mean, that’s something, though. But, uh, that’s the game.”[8] Versus Rivera, Martinez was able to log a 0.625 batting average, with 10 hits during 16 appearances.[9]”

[Mister_Rik]

@BlankSlate

ETA: Career .418 OBP, career .933 OPS, career 147 OPS+. DH is a position, the greats should be in the Hall. Ortiz will be going in eventually; Martinez should be in first.

But yeah, the freaking DH award is named after Edgar. Damn right he should be in the HOF!

[BlankSlate]

@Mister_Rik

Heh. From Edgar’s Wikipedia entry:

“Retired Yankee great Mariano Rivera, when asked whether there was anyone he was afraid to face, said that he was never afraid, but “I will put it like this: The only guy that I didn’t want to face, when a tough situation comes, was Edgar Martínez. The reason is because I couldn’t get him out. (laughs) I couldn’t get him out. It didn’t matter how I threw the ball. I couldn’t get him out. Oh, my god, he had more than my number. He had my breakfast, lunch and dinner. He got everything from me. Oh, my god, yeah. I mean, that’s something, though. But, uh, that’s the game.”[8] Versus Rivera, Martinez was able to log a 0.625 batting average, with 10 hits during 16 appearances.[9]”

It was his success that led to some switch-hitters to bat righty against Rivera.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Jimmy_Chitwood

RickJay’s post was great, and since he posted it, he can’t say it without being sour grapes so I’m going to say it: I honestly cannot understand why you guys don’t think this is cool. Why does what he just said to you not matter?!

You like Jeter because he runs balls out and because he makes smart plays and takes extra bases? That’s really cool, and check this out! We have a computer that keeps track of that! We can prove that it’s true! That isn’t interesting? Why is it interesting when you subjectively believe he’s good at something, but not interesting when there’s a quantitative process the computation of which is publicly available that proves how true it is?

These are honest questions. Why are you not excited by that?

I don’t know how you’ve determined that various people don’t think RickJay’s post was cool, or are not excited by this new knowledge.

But that said, I’ll cop to being a bit less than blown away by some of these stats. You can feed all sorts of things into a computer program and produce results, but the key question is always whether the numbers are being tracked and measured accurately, and whether the formulas in the model are accurately assessing the value of whatever it is that they’re measuring. Meaning, for example, whether the assessment in each instance of whether Jeter failed to take an extra base that an average baserunner would have gotten or took an extra base that an average runner would not have, and then assessing the value of taking an extra base in terms of runs added, and so on. A lot of fancy-shmancy models are very intimidating and impressive to people who are impressed by fancy-shmancy models, but when you look at them really closely it’s just GIGO.

That said, the important disclaimer here is that I’m not claiming that these models are anything less than 100% accurate and valid. I don’t have the slightest idea. My broader skepticism is based largely on my experience in the actuarial field, where a lot of sophisticated statistical modeling is worth much less than would appear to the novice, in the manner described above. And these baseball “intangibles” seem like the type of thing that would be even more subject to the GIGO phenomenon than actuarial stats. But I don’t know. So I’m not challenging anything that RickJay is saying. But if you’re asking why people are not blown away by this knowledge, I can tell you the reasons in the case of one specific guy.