Derek Jeter is a baseball legend. One of the greatest competitors in the history of his sport, he is one of the most dominant athletes of his generation under pressure.
But if “Captain Clutch” had arrived in baseball today, would he have managed to make a name for himself in the same way?
Jeter packs some punch, but not that much. He’s got a decent arm. It’s fairly nimble, but nothing exceptional. It runs pretty fast, but it’s not a Gazelle either. He’s a good small hitter, but nothing flashy.
This is Jeter’s profile. On paper, his description looks like this.
In fact, the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. is really better in terms of talent and athleticism. So is Elly De La Cruz of the Reds. Also superior is Carlos Correa, who is having an unusual season with the Twins. Wander Franco from the Rays is definitely stronger. The Mets’ Francisco Lindor is way better.
The reality is that today every shortstop in the league has more talent than Jeter, who was still a first-round pick (6th overall).
A former major league player, Denard Span, caused a lot of trouble a few years ago when he argued that Derek Jeter could only have gotten a minor league contract after his 30s in today’s baseball.
Span had apparently been picked up by several amateurs.
Between the ages of 30 and 40, Jeter appeared in nine All-Star games. During his career he scored over 3,000 hits and won five gold gloves and three silver batons.
A nice debate
Still, Span’s comment wasn’t that silly. On the contrary, it sheds light on a major debate in the world of sport, particularly in the field of recruitment.
Will the huge advances that allow for talent assessment see us outrun Derek Jeter?
It’s crazy how professional sports teams now have amazing ways of evaluating talent.
Before an athlete is selected, the team knows everything: whether they prefer creamy or traditional coleslaw, how often they brush their teeth per day, what their full moon batting average is against a pitcher from a Republican state…
I’m exaggerating a bit, but it’s the same in all sports these days.
In Jeter’s day, it was pretty rudimentary. A scout might say, “He may not have all the talent in the world, but he’s a competitor and a winner.” And it’s over.
There, one player can definitely be a winner if another player can hit the ball 400 feet and throw 100 miles an hour, he gets to pass earlier.
scout
Sylvain Saindon has been a major figure in amateur baseball for more than 30 years and Director of Player Development for Baseball Québec.
PHOTO COURTESY/QUEBEC BASEBALL
In his opinion, all of this was a “very interesting” debate.
According to him, Jeter might take a different path if he got into baseball today.
“Maybe he would be viewed differently … that scouts wouldn’t say ‘wow’ at first glance, that he’d be told to go to second base and not shortstop.”
“And that’s the dangerous thing,” he says, despite all the wonderful new ways of evaluating talent.
“It’s going to be an extremely fascinating debate that we’re going to see a lot over the next few years between talent and efficiency. Eventually, if we take too many numbers and don’t look at competitiveness, we will unfortunately be missing some great baseball players,” Mr. Saindon continues.
As an example, he cites former pitcher Greg Maddux, one of the greatest of all time. Would he have had such a career today? It’s the same debate.
The same goes for Lionel Messi, who isn’t the fastest and doesn’t kick the hardest. But it’s the best.
With the new analysis capabilities, “the numbers are telling us what to do and we have to be careful,” he continues.
He recalls a famous baseball scout quote: “No one cares how fast you throw a fourth ball.”