September 26, 2014

The long, overrated goodbye


These are the last days and rites of Derek Jeter. The sainted captain enters his final weekend with a career-worst .253 batting average, .301 on-base percentage and .309 slugging percentage. He is hitting .205/.259/.295 in September, including a 0-for-28 stretch in the middle of the month, during what used to be a pennant race. The Yankees will miss the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1993. The team has worn Jeter’s No. 2 on its uniforms and caps since Sept. 7, yielding speculation that he had died along with his strike zone judgment.

Jeter’s final season has been a cloying farewell tour, with gifts and applause in nearly every opposing ballpark. Fortune magazine ranked him 11th on its list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders — two spots behind the Dalai Lama. At the All-Star Game, he received a 63-second standing ovation before leading off for the American League. He doubled on what looked like a batting practice pitch from Adam Wainwright. “I was going to give him a couple pipe shots just to — he deserved it,” he said. On Derek Jeter Day at Yankee Stadium, Cal Ripken said: “It is hard to measure and define all the magic that Derek brings to the table.”



It is easier to measure Jeter the ballplayer. But it is a divisive exercise, an example of the holy war between advanced metrics and traditional statistics, often muddied by the unreliable eye test.