Dan, sounds like your dad just isn’t interested in the truth and is hung up on protecting Jeter’s status as a Yankee legend, no matter the cost. If you really care about getting through eventually, I’d start with discussing non-traditional concepts that would affirm your dad’s views of certain players (Jeter’s good because of OBP or Melky’s not just an overblown Yankee prospect because there’s real value in playing center field and throwing out 14 baserunners). If he starts buying into your line of thinking, you can start working your way down a long chain of ideas towards Jeter’s fielding.

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/dialed_in/discussion/what_is_zone_rating/

I’d say something about the goal being estimating opportunities since that’s the one problem with regular fielding stats. Assists is kind of like hits for batters without having at bats — what the heck are you going to do with that?

Maybe tell him something about Tango’s fans scouting report and that stat heads don’t necessarily think the numbers are everything (especially in small samples).

I don’t know.

My dad is extremely anti-statistics in every way except when it involves batting average (he’s 53, give him a break). So when I try to tell him that David Wright is deserving of being at least in the discussion for NL gold glove, he says the numbers are meaningless (we’re both yankee fans, but I’m still gonna argue for wright in this case). He then completely dismisses the assertion that Derek Jeter is arguably the worst short stop in MLB today (by BIS +/- rating and zone rating), and one of the worst of all time (by relative range factors).

Considering that, he won’t read the article posted below, explaining some of these things. Any suggestions on how to get through to him on the topic of fielding statistics?

http://www.billjamesonline.net/fieldingbible/jeter.asp

Thanks