The Yankees have acknowledged they are going to pay Derek Jeter more and for longer than what a 36-year-old coming off his worst season should receive.
Fine. No one needs to get out a tin cup and help the Yankees. Money — earning it and spending it — is their specialty. If they see the value of giving Jeter a parting-gift contract that keeps the goodwill between historic franchise and iconic player, then so be it.
But it is going to stop there, right?
Because there is a faction of media and fans who seem more determined to make sure Jeter is taken care of than, you know, actually making sure the Yankees remain elite contenders.
In its most bizarre form comes the genius theory — espoused in multiple places over and over again — that in the next year or two Jeter will simply move to third base and Alex Rodriguez will become the regular DH. The only way to see that as an actual good idea is to begin with this premise: Derek Jeter must play every day in the field. Period.
What in Jeter’s history would make anyone think he can play third base? Forget the Gold Gloves, anybody who is not on the Jeter payroll or sees the world only through Jeter-colored glasses knows he is a range-less shortstop. The reason is because he does not react well to the ball off the bat. So how is it wise to move him to a position that is all about reaction off the bat; a position he has never played and that is about 50-75 feet closer to the contact than the one he plays now?
You can put making him a left fielder or center fielder this late in his career also in the “trying to fit the Yankees around Jeter” category rather than remembering that Jeter is the employee. You will shuffle him from shortstop to center, where he will have even less range? You will take him from shortstop to left, where his dying offense will be even starker? Stop.
This is a baseball team, not a fan club or an alumni association. Realistic discussions of Jeter are too often scuttled with his intangibles or his class or his history. That is all nice. But what do they have to do with winning games from 2011 forward? If you are honoring those elements with unquestioned playing time or a spot atop the order, you have lost what Jeter himself claims he is all about, which is team and winning.
At this moment, Jeter is the best realistic option to play shortstop for the 2011 Yankees. We are now done with the sure things. All else should be open for discussion and adaptation based on what is seen today, not on a highlight reel from 1999. There must be new Jeter Rules that are immune to emotional ties. He will get the money for how the fan base feels about him.
We have seen the Yankees do some of this as foundation pieces aged. They, for example, moved a championship cleanup hitter/center fielder in Bernie Williams into more and more irrelevant roles and then finally off the roster. This week GM Brian Cashman informed Jeter’s pal, Jorge Posada, that his catching had deteriorated so much that he is now the DH.
Jeter must fall into the same category, assessed by what is occurring today. Girardi dismissed questions about moving Jeter down from the No. 1 or 2 hole in the lineup last year because he said he did not manage by snapshot decisions. But 739 plate appearances is no snapshot, and in that total last year, Jeter was the Yankees’ least productive regular. There should be no snapshot alibis in 2011. If Jeter should hit eighth or ninth, then so be it.
If Jeter needs to sit a day a week to preserve his aging body, then he should, regardless of his distaste for that. If the right thing is to, say, play Ramiro Pena or Eduardo Nunez late in a game as a defensive replacement, why should Jeter be protected where teammates are not?
Again, is this about winning or having a non-stop Yankee-ography on the roster? The Yankees are about to pay their respects by paying oodles of dollars. They are about to spend for what Jeter was, not what he is. Again, fine. No tin cups.
What no team can afford — even the richest — is to allow the heart to rule the brain in on-field decisions. That will make you poorer in the standings.