Jeter's Offseason Work Paying off at Short

From Dan Graziano:

By all available objective statistical measures, Jeter has ranked as one of the worst defensive shortstops in baseball for the past several years. Forget what your eyes and (especially) your heart tell you -- this is what the stats say, and as mentioned a moment ago, that's what we're dealing with here.

The Yankees know the stats, and their eyes were backing them up. So this past winter, they got up the nerve to talk to their future Hall of Fame shortstop about it.

According to two Yankees officials, who requested anonymity because they feared they were talking about things that might upset or embarrass Jeter, the Yankees approached their captain last offseason and told him they wanted him to work on his defense -- specifically on balls hit up the middle to his left, where he has been particularly weak.

They also asked Jeter if he would please be more attentive to advance scouting reports when positioning himself. This has been a particular peeve of the Yankees' regarding Jeter in recent years -- that he was stubborn about not wanting to move a step or two to his right or left to account for the hitter, the pitcher or the situation.

But the Yankees found Jeter receptive to their entreaties. He worked last winter and in spring training on improving his first step to his left, and team officials say he is paying more attention to those scouting reports regarding positioning.

Defensive stats are tricky and evolving, but one place that does them well is The Hardball Times. Their site (www.hardballtimes.com) uses two key defensive statistics: Revised Zone Rating (RZR), which measures the percentage of balls hit into a fielder's zone that he converts into an out, and Out Of Zone (OOZ), which measures the number of outs a fielder records on balls hit outside of his zone. Here's how Jeter's past four years break down:

In 2004, Jeter had an RZR of .801, which ranked him ninth among the 10 AL shortstops who played enough to qualify, and made 29 OOZ plays, which ranked him 13th.

In 2005, Jeter had an RZR of .792, which ranked him eighth among the 10 AL shortstops who qualified, and made 26 OOZ plays, which ranked him 13th.

In 2006, Jeter had an RZR of .805, which ranked him eighth among the 11 qualifying AL shortstops, and made 28 OOZ plays, which ranked him 11th.

In 2007, Jeter had an RZR of .777, which ranked him 10th among the 11 qualifying AL shortstops, and made 35 OOZ plays, which ranked him 14th.

So far this year, Jeter has an RZR of .848, which is a massive improvement and ranks fourth among AL shortstops. Through Thursday, he'd also made 14 OOZ plays, which ranked him seventh and put him on pace for 43, which would be a big number for him.

Between the offseason workouts to improve his range, and his new appreciation for scouting reports, Jeter has gone from one of the worst shortstops in the league (statistically) to one of the better ones, which is very impressive. It would be even more impressive if he can keep this up all year, but there's no reason to doubt he will.

All those sinkers he's been throwing over to first do worry me a bit, though, but Giambi has been good at scooping them out of the dirt. So as long as Shelley Duncan isn't playing first Jeter should be fine.