Jeter: Where Does He Rank Among All-Time Greats?

I was trying to stay in the Allan Trammel theme

 

Keri is fast becoming my favorite baseball writer.

 

Jeter is a no-doubt HOFer, but he's a worse or even player with a lot of players whom a lot of "small-Hall" fans would consider borderline or out.

 

The object of the game is to score more runs than your opponent and Jeter crossed home plate more often than all but nine of the 18,000 or so guys in the game's history. I think it's pretty safe to say he's a HOFer.

The Jeter resentment here gets a little silly at times.

 

Come on, be reasonable. Everybody. Enough is enough. Jeter is not an immortal like Ruth Gehrig Musial Aaron and Mays but he is a lifetime .300+ hitter after 20 years with 3600+ hits. That is not borderline. Question his defense all you like and it is questionable, he was the starting short stop on 7 pennant winning teams and 5 World Series winners. He has a season's worth of post season games, 158, where he hit 308/374/465. And a World Series average higher than that That is impressive. THat is Hall of Fame worthy beyond question. At the age of 38 he led the AL in At Bats and hits, that is not living on past glory either. And unless he turns into Joe D and demands to be treated as the Greatest Living Ball Player, he has performed with near perfect sportsmanship, the respect of his peers and less showboating in his career than David Ortiz does in a mid-July strike out swinging.

You can recognize his greatness without the deification

 

This.

 

Well, Jeter waltzing into the HOF by near-unanimous first-ballot acclamation, as he likely will, will certainly provide fuel for the Veterans' Commitee cases for Whitaker and Trammell.

 

Trammell needs some good news. He just got canned along with Kirk Gibson.

 

Someone get Lew Whitaker or Daryl Evans on the phone.

 

Who on earth is saying Jeter isn't a Hall of Famer? He's a no-doubt-about-it first ballot guy. Like Robin Yount. All anyone is saying is that he's not on the level of an Aaron, Mays or Mantle.

But yeah -- Trammell and Whitaker should both be in and it's a travesty that the likes of Sandberg, Larkin and Ozzie Smith got in so easily and they didn't get a sniff.

 

Alan Trammell is a very strange case to be making as a corollary. Not sure who brought him up. But Jeter has him by 1,100 hits and 75 home runs, and is better across the board in BA/OBP/SLG. Also a better OPS+ (115 to 110) and eight MVP top-10 finishes to Trammell's three (and three MVP top-fives to Trammell's one).

 

Runs scored? That's what you use to make your point? You know more about baseball than that, cran.