skyking162

Two blogs (Fragile Freddy and WasWatching) recently analyzed Derek Jeter’s contributions to the Yankees during his career. One concluded that New York would have missed the playoffs twice without Jeter and the other is going with six times.

I’m going to run the same study, not because I really want to know how critical Jeter has been to the Yankees’ success, but because I want to outline what I think is the best way carry out this analysis. Of course, I’m not going to attempt to measure all the intangibles and leadership Jeter has provided, because, well, those are valuable beyond measure. (It’s your choice whether to read the previous sentence with sarcasm or awe.)

I’m going to start with Baseball-Reference’s Batting Wins stat, which uses linear weights, park adjustments, and league adjustments. Best of all, it’s a stat that appears on every player page, listed second from the right in the Special Batting section. Derek Jeter’s 2007 batting wins were +2.0 (relative to average).

Batting wins includes stolen bases, but not general baserunning. Jeter’s typically regarded as a good baserunner, so I’ll give him another half a win per season.

Jeter’s prowess at shortstop is his main — and perhaps only — weakness as a player. I’m going to use STATS zone rating converted to runs for each season, linked here. In 2007, Jeter was 2.0 wins (20 runs) worse than the average shortstop.

Of course, Jeter does get some credit for being a shortstop and not a left fielder. Over 150 games in the field, shortstops get a half win bonus.

Finally, because we want to compare Jeter to replacement level, not average, we need to give him two wins per 650 plate appearances. In 2007, Jeter had 714 PAs, good for 2.2 more wins.

Overall, these estimates put Jeter at 3.2 wins above replacement level in 2007 (+2.0 batting, +.5 baserunning, +.5 position, -2.0 fielding, and +2.2 replacement.) For reference, four wins is borderline All-Star, and true MVP candidates are at least seven wins above replacement. If the Yankees had a replacement-level shortstop (zero wins) in 2007 instead of Jeter, they only would have finished “2.8″ wins ahead of the Tigers for the Wild Card, instead of six.

Below you’ll find the same data for each season Jeter has been the main Yankee shortstop. The “w/DJ” column is the actual number of games the Yankees finished ahead of the second place Wild Card finisher, while “w/oDJ” subtracts the number of wins Jeter provided. A negative number means the Yankees would have missed the playoffs. It looks like Jeter’s performance was critical to the Yankees’ playoff runs in 1999, 2000, 2004, and 2005.

Year	Bat	Field	Pos	BRun	Repl	TOT	w/DJ	w/oDJ
1996	0.2	-1.3	0.5	0.5	2.0	1.9	4	2.1
1997	0.4	-0.2	0.6	0.5	2.3	3.6	12	8.4
1998	2.2	0.4	0.5	0.5	2.1	5.7	22	16.3
1999	4.9	0.0	0.5	0.5	2.3	8.2	4	-4.2
2000	2.5	-1.3	0.5	0.5	2.1	4.3	2.5	-1.8
2001	1.9	-1.8	0.5	0.5	2.1	3.2	13.5	10.3
2002	1.1	-1.6	0.5	0.5	2.2	2.8	10.5	7.7
2003	1.8	-1.4	0.4	0.5	1.7	3.0	6	3.0
2004	1.3	0.3	0.5	0.5	2.2	4.8	3	-1.8
2005	2.5	0.1	0.5	0.5	2.3	5.9	2	-3.9
2006	3.0	-0.5	0.5	0.5	2.2	5.7	10	4.3
2007	2.0	-2.0	0.5	0.5	2.2	3.2	6	2.8

Now, that’s not the end of the discussion, because there’s a definite possibility that the Yankees could have found a non-Jeter shortstop who was better than replacement level. I’m going to add three more pieces of information showing Jeter’s yearly salary, how many wins that money would have bought on the free agent market, and the advantage Jeter provided over spending that money on free agents.

According to TangoTiger’s research, free agent wins cost $4 million during the 2007 pre-season and are increasing by about 8% per season. So, as an estimate, free agent wins cost only $2.3 million in 1999, with the minimum salary being $200,000. The “w/o DJ” column now represents how many games ahead of the second place Wild Card team the Yankees would have finished by spending their money on a free agent alternative to Jeter.

Year	DJ Salary	DJ Wins	FA Wins	Advant	w/DJ	w/oDJ
1996	$130,000	1.9	0.0	+1.9	4	2.1
1997	$550,000	3.6	0.2	+3.4	12	8.6
1998	$750,000	5.7	0.3	+5.5	22	16.5
1999	$5 million	8.2	2.1	+6.2	4	-2.2
2000	$10 million	4.3	3.9	+0.4	2.5	2.1
2001	$13 million	3.2	4.7	-1.5	13.5	15.0
2002	$15 million	2.8	5.1	-2.3	10.5	12.8
2003	$16 million	3.0	5.0	-2.0	6	8.0
2004	$19 million	4.8	5.5	-0.6	3	3.6
2005	$20 million	5.9	5.3	+0.6	2	1.4
2006	$21 million	5.7	5.2	+0.5	10	9.5
2007	$22 million	3.2	4.9	-1.7	6	7.7

As you can see, 1999 is now the only season in which the Yankees would have finished out of the playoffs if they didn’t have Derek Jeter, although 2005 is close. Looking at the Advantage column, notice that New York got the most value out of Jeter from 1996 through 1999, the three years they could pay Jeter as little as they wanted and his first year of arbitration.

That’s not to say he got worse once his salary skyrocketed or that he’s not now a good player. It’s just that his value to the Yankees no longer compares to what they’re paying him, a fault of the Yankees, not Jeter. Since he signed the big contract in 2001, New York is a total of 7 wins worse with Jeter than if they had spent the same money at the average free agent rate.

Hat Tips…

… to Baseball-Reference.com, as usual
… to Sean Smith’s article pointing out the Batting Wins stat and replacement level adjustment
… to Baseball Almanac for the minimum salary info
… to Cot’s baseball contracts

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