In all honesty, why even throw out the line about Ramiro Pena subbing for Jeter in late-game situations? Is that in an effort to drive readership/comments? It seems like a pretty popular play amongst the media these days. You of all people should understand what such a move would mean. Throw out UZR ratings and the like. Some things quantitative do not measure to the qualitative.

Forgive me if I’m missing something, but Derek Jeter and his range are not the reasons this team hasn’t won a World Series in eight years.

Damon has been an OF his entire career. You want to move a 34 year old SS and his 102 OPS+ to a corner OF position, really?

Only one player can make the Yanks move Jeter to the LF. That’s Honus Wagner.
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You think that Jeter will now a 102 OPS+ hitter for the rest of his career because of one season? Really?If so, he can’t play SS for the Yankees either. I think he was affected by the Cabrera HBP in May, and should bounce back at least to the mid-110s.

Robin Yount moved from SS to the OF at 29. As Torre often said when he counseled against a move of Bernie to 1B, it’s much easier to move from the infield to the outfield than than the other way around.

Jeter still has decent speed and is great at tracking flyballs. What he lacks is lateral quickness, which is why is range at SS isn’t very good. So he still has the skills to play the OF.

Honus Wagner? Get real.It’s not about ability, otherwise A-Rod would have been the SS since 2004. It’s about sensibilities, and by the end of 2010 at the very latest that has to change, if winning is the most important thing.

I’m sure that they’ve thought this through so it also probably means they feel very comfortable with Posada’s ability to catch and aren’t thinking they might have to add Cash or Stewart to the 40 man. That’s probably a good sign but like CB I hope it doesn’t backfire and cause unnecessarily shuffling to open up a 40 man spot in the first half of the year.

It seems to me that Juan Miranda is a trade candidate. He’s a wasted spot on the 40 man given how he’s blocked by both Tex and Swisher at 1B and by many at DH. I’d imagine that they are hoping he can up his trade value by hitting lefties for awhile but I’d assume that he might be the one to go when they need to open a spot.

This move though is not only bad news for Berroa, its bad news for Tomko. Its hard to picture a scenario now where they’d want to bring him up badly enough to create a spot on the 40 man for him before his May out.

Damon has been an OF his entire career. You want to move a 34 year old SS and his 102 OPS+ to a corner OF position, really?

Only one player can make the Yanks move Jeter to the LF. That’s Honus Wagner.

Because the value of any player isn’t simply his defense or offense it’s both.

Offense, defense and baserunning Jeter was a 3.7 WAR shortstop last year.

Offense, defense, and baserunning JJ Hardy was a 3.7 WAR shortstop last year.

At 3.7 WAR Jeter was tied for being the 5th most valuable shortstop in baseball.

Unless you can get Hanley, Jimmy Rollins, Jose Reyes, Mike Aviles (and Troy Tulowitski who was hurt all last year…) your not going to find a much better shortstop than Jeter.

There is zero chance Jeter would be the 5th most valuable LF in baseball.

As such his greatest value to the yankees for this season is as a SS – despite his marginal defense(and who really cares about the great 2010 dilemma the day before opening day 2009…)

And that was a year in which he slumped dramatically and couldn’t hit for any power for a couple of months after Daniel Cabrera hit him in the hand.

This Jeter defense issue has gotten blown completely out of proportion.
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That depends the source.

According to Baseball Projection.com, Jeter was 2.7 WAR last, and that was in Jeter’s best defensive season in years.

Now granted, Jeter had a hand injury last season, which probably impacted his offense (102 OPS+), but if Jeter can return to being a 120 OPS+ player, and play the OF with the ability he has shown to track flyballs as an INFer, there is no reason that he can’t be a very productive both offensively and defensively, if in fact his 2008 offensive output was an anomaly.

More importantly, WAR (as are most stats) is insensitive to the importance of getting to (or failing to get to) balls at critical junctures in a game. So to claim that one can merely look at his WAR rank and make a definitive assessment of his (or any player’s) true value is to leave out a lot of important data.

At a time when Cash is trying to (re)build this team around pitching and defense, it is a glaring weakness that needs to be addressed if the Yankees’ pitchers are going to have their best chance to succeed.

Jeter in LF – you make the same darn point every day—so now you’re dug in. Much like a few of the beat writers who wish Derek would call it quits sooner rather than later, you actually have to root for Jeter to fail. Then you’re right. Then you’re a genius. But for now, it’s pretty tiring and a bit depressing to see your name in a light blue box. You are a big bummer.
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Dude,

I don’t root for Jeter to fail, and for you to make that point shows how shallow your ability to argue a point really is.

I deal in facts. Apparently, you deal in feelings.

I root for Jeter and every player on the Yankees to succeed every time they are up at the plate or get a chance in the field. But unlike you, I then make a realistic assessment of what I see.

The idea that you think that I want to look like a genius demonstrates the fallacy of your reasoning. That Jeter is not a good defensive SS is obvious. Pointing that out is merely evidence of a grasp of reality.

People who are in deep denial are the biggest bummer going because they engage in ad hominem attacks rather than reasoned debate.

NOTHING is more tiring than that.

I’ll respectfully disagree with you. People forget that Melky is 2 years younger than Gardner. Melky was hitting .280 in the majors while Gardner was struggling to master AA at the same age. And compare their AAA numbers — especially the strikeouts. I think Gardner needed to do more to strip Melky of his job last year. Apparently there’s some attitude issues as well, but it’s hard for us to evaluate those things from where we sit. I just hope Girardi isn’t giving Gardner the job only because he likes a guy who gets his uniform dirty. We’ll see.