The Fielding Bible

The Jeter-hating in The Fielding Bible, by John Dewan, pisses me off. No, Jeter doesn't have the best range in the world, blahblahblah...

But come on, in one section of this book which was entirely about why Adam Everett is a million times better than Derek Jeter defensively, Bill James saying:

In one way of looking at it, it makes intuitive sense that Derek Jeter could be the worst defensive shortstop of all-time.

is a ridiculous claim to make.

Granted, from 2000-2003 Jeter had some bad years in the field:

Derek Jeter (zone ratings)
2000: .811
2001: .789
2002: .803
2003: .791

Alright, these were kinda crappy years in the field. His FRAA were also very far in the negative (in the -20s). But, this quote was talking mostly about his 2004-2005 seasons, when he won the Gold Gloves. Now, Jeter in reality did not deserve the Gold Gloves that he won, however, he was certainly not BAD.

Derek Jeter (2004/2005 and league ranks)
.847/.830 (6th of 11/5th of 10) zone rating (and by the way, John Dewan created this stat)
4.46/4.76 (8th of 11/2nd of 10) range factor per 9 IN
96/96 (5th of 11/5th of 10) double plays
6.9/6.0 (3rd of 11/5th of 10) fielding win shares
-5/+13 (would require too much looking up individual players' pages for a currently lazy B.A. Baracus) FRAA

He played shortstop certainly better than adequately by all of these metrics. Fielding stats are definitely not perfect, but that's why I look at all of them to try to give you a total picture. And after doing so, anybody who tries to tell me that Derek Jeter is the worst defensive shortstop of all time can go screw themselves.

PS It's kinda funny, while Everett's 2005 zone rating was .873, Adam Everett was worth all of 0.2 win shares more than Jeter on fielding, had the same number of double plays, had a lower RF9 (4.39), had 11 fewer fielding runs. Yeah, Everett's a MILLION times better. *picture B.A. doing jackoff gesture*