Derek Jeter: is he done or what?

Originally posted May, 12, 2011.

Here is the all time MLB batting average (BA) current since 1876 with stats from baseball-reference.com:

3,551,256/13,545,167 = 0.262178827326

.262 BA

Derek Jeter is currently batting .271, just a little above.  Jeter batted .270 in 2010.

Jeter was way down until a sudden surge of 8 hits, including two homers Sunday, in three games.  Last night Jeter was 0 for 6.

On the radio talk shows the contingent of Yankee fans who unfortunately overlap with the New York Ranger NHL loser fans have been apoplectic in their devotion to Jeter even if he sucks.  Since Jeter's surge, they have been orgasmic.  How will they react to his 0 for 6 in last night's incredibly boring 4-3 loss in 11 innings that dragged on past midnight?  I viewed Jeter on deck late in the game and wondered how he remained awake.

Those of us Yankee fans who do not also root for the Ranger hockey team have long realized that Jeter's skills are naturally eroding with age and that the four year contract that Jeter extorted from the Yankees is absurd.

Great players can have a short burst at the end of their careers and then fall back to their ever decreasing performance.  After cutting his salary in each of the final four years that Babe Ruth played for the Yankees the Yanks dumped Ruth who then signed with NL Boston.  Ruth's home run log shows that he hit his last three home runs in one game: Saturday, May 25, 1935, Forbes Field Pittsburgh.  One of them flew over the right field grandstand.

However, Ruth's game log shows that he played five more games going hitless in nine at bats (AB), plus two walks and five strike outs.  The Babe struck out three times in the game following his three homer outburst.  Ruth was 40 years old.

I recall but have not yet documented similar outbursts over longer periods of 10-14 days from Mickey Mantle circa 1966-1967.  Mantle was 34-35 years old.  The lightning returns to the bat briefly but the player cannot sustain it the way he used to.  The same is happening with Jeter, except unlike his Yankee teammate Alex Rodriguez, Jeter does not even have home run hitting to fall back on.  Jeter will be 37 years old June 26.

As I documented in a previous post on aging players, shortstops over the age of 36 do one of  two things:

1. stop playing SS regularly

2. decrease batting performance each succeeding season.