Jeter's Defense Is No Longer Just The Yankees' Problem

Now it's the entire country's problem. Here's more from Ken Rosenthal:

Before Tuesday night, Jeter had played only 15 innings at shortstop over the previous 10 days, a far lower total than he would have compiled if he had remained with the Yankees at spring training.

So, Johnson played Jeter for nine innings at short in the elimination game against Puerto Rico and used Rollins as his designated hitter.

Twice, Jeter failed to stop balls to his left that Rollins might have at least knocked down, and both led directly to runs.

If Team USA had not secured its dramatic 6-5 victory over Puerto Rico by staging a three-run rally in the ninth inning, Jeter's defense would have come under heavy scrutiny.

Jeter, who turns 35 on June 26, is 4 1/2 years older than Rollins. His defensive decline is not exactly a secret within the industry; the sabermetric community, in particular, has pointed out his inadequacies.

I hope and pray that what we saw on Tuesday night was effected by some offseason rust, because he really looked awful. It was like he was running in quick sand. He looked so bad that a friend of mine who has been defending Jeter's defense for quite some time sent me this text message: "Jeter is such a joke in the field.. I'm convinced."

Jeter did have his reasons - or excuses - for why he was unable to make the plays. First the Rios single in the sixth:

"That was a slider," Jeter said, referring to the pitch by right- hander Heath Bell to Rios, a right-handed hitter. "He usually pulls sliders. I've played against him enough. He usually gets out in front of sliders in that situation."

And left-handed Ramon Vazquez's single in the 9th:

"I was just trying to knock it down," Jeter said. "The bottom line in that situation is that Broxton throws so hard, you can't shade him up the middle. He can hit the ball the other way, so you've gotta play straight up."

Fair enough, but it's very likely that any other shortstop in the league at least knocks those balls down stopping those runs from scoring. Jimmy Rollins, who is one of the better defensive shortstops in the game, definitely does.

Rob Neyer has this to say about what Jeter's defense will really cost Team USA:

What does that mean, practically? The difference between them might fall somewhere in the range of 20-30 runs, or (roughly) less than 0.2 runs per game. That's why -- when someone asked me on the radio last week -- I said that playing Jeter instead of Rollins was highly unlikely to really hurt Team USA. If the Americans reach the final, they'll play eight games; theoretically, even if Jeter played every inning of every game, he would "cost" his team a couple of runs … and a couple of runs wouldn't be likely to change anything. And he's not playing every inning of every game.

So far, so good. Jeter's cost his team (at least) a couple of runs, but Team USA hasn't lost a game because of them. Not quite. Nor is Team USA likely to lose the championship because of Jeter. Still, you can't help but wonder -- as you might have wondered three years ago -- if decisions like this one send a fundamental message to everyone involved: Team USA isn't really trying to win.

If you were Davey Johnson who would you start at shortstop on Saturday, Jeter or Rollins?

I know who I'd start, and it isn't Jeter.