2010 Yankees-Red Sox Comparison: Shortstop

Yankees- Derek Jeter- One of the Yankees greatest strengths of the past fourteen years has been their ability to count on consistently outstanding production from the traditionally weak position of shortstop. Jeter has his weaknesses and is certainly vastly overrated in some corners of baseball. However, their is absolutely no doubt that he's still an outstanding ballplayer and the poster child for what every young ballplayer seeks to be. Even as a 35 year old veteran, he continues to be a leader on the field and has shown few signs of decline the past three years.

Even if you can forget that he won his fifth World Series Championship in 2009, it was a huge year for the Yankees captain. Coming into the year, their were a lot of doubts surrounding him. His offensive numbers were clearly trending downwards across the board since his big 2007 campaign when he almost won an MVP. He hit .300/.363/.408 in his 2008 campaign. While that's not a huge problem coming from the shortstop position in the Yankees lineup, you'd like to see a few more extra base hits coming from a guy getting over 20 million dollars a year. Not to mention the fact that his already bad range was getting even worse. He got hot at the end of the year to get his average back to .300 and make it look decent but he had some worrying how many years he really had left.

After an offseason of rest, he came back stronger than ever and answered those questions resoundingly with what might be his best year yet. In a season where he broke Lou Gehrig's record for hits as a Yankee, he hit .334/.406/.465 and posted a wOBA of .390. We saw a return of both Jeter's power and his speed in 2009 as the HR's and stolen bases both returned to the levels we saw in the prime of his career. Not only that but the defensive stats actually began to fit the reputation in 2009. His UZR was 6.6, the first positive mark from the four time gold glove award winner since they began tracking the stat in 2002. It was a big year for Jeter and now as we approach a contract year, my hope are high for him in 2010.

Red Sox- Marcos Scutaro- Ever since they traded Nomar Garciaparra back in 2004, the Red Sox have been searching for an answer to shortstop. Scutaro is the latest in a long list of guys that they've plugged into that hole. It seemed like a strange signing to me at the time and judging by Scutaro's incredibly inconsistent track record, its going to be very difficult for anyone to accurately project his performance for 2010. To give you an idea of how odd it is, the past two years were his best two years and really the only ones that merit a starting job at all. The past two years he was 34 and 35.


Prior to 2009 he was a middling offensive player. Even when you include that year, his career line is only .265/.337/.384. Before last year he had only one year with a wRC+ over 100, which is average. Other than the 102 he posted in 2006, his highest had been 92 and he hovered around 90 pretty consistently. Other than in 2006, his contributions to his teams with the bat had all been negative according to fangraphs.com. Even though it was a contract year, I don't think anybody could have predicted the year he had with the bat in 2010. He hit .282/.379/.409 and had a wOBA of .354. Its tough to say whether he can repeat that kind of performance. My instinct is to say it was a fluke but their's really no indication that it was, his BABIP and HR/FB% are right in line with his career averages. It should be interesting to see in 2010 whether Scutaro's career year in 2009 was a fluke or not.

Scutaro's defense is also difficult to predict. Throughout his career he's been shuffled around the field quite a bit. He spent significant time at second, third, and shortstop as recently as 2008 before truly finding a home at shortstop. Until the last two years, he'd also been a below average defensive player. His net worth defensively in his career has been -8.5 runs. Something happened in 2008 though and his fielding approved at all three of his positions. Most notably, in his 56 games at shortstop he put up a UZR of 7.6. It all added up to 11.2 runs defensively, a major outlier in his career. In 2009 he was pretty much a full-time shortstop and, though he wasn't as good as he was in 2008, he did a solid job. His UZR was .9 at short and it looks like his 2008 defense was not just a fluke, Scutaro did make some sort of change to improve his defensive game.

Advantage- Yankees- Their's really no explanation necessary here. These will be two interesting guys to watch in 2010 though. The Yankees captain will head into a contract year and its tough to say how much he'll get in his next contract. If he has another year like 2009, he could end up getting the Steinbrenner family to fork over a truly ridiculous amount of money. If he shows signs of decline, he's going to test the resolve of the Yankees brass to favor the practical over the sentimental. Scutaro is also a strange case. For a guy like him, who has really been a utility infielder his whole career, to suddenly become a productive player in his mid 30's is pretty rare. In the tight AL East, whether his last two years are proven to be a fluke or not could prove to be the difference maker.