The following is a guest post from TYA reader Sam Menzin. Sam plays baseball at Swarthmore College, and has interned with a Major League Baseball team as well as a baseball agency, dealing with arbitration research and preparation. Sam can be reached at smenzin at gmail dot com.
A lot has been made about Jose Reyes’ 2011 season to date, and rightly so. By fWAR, he’s currently the second-most valuable player in all of baseball. Reyes’ surge has also been magnified by the drama of his impending free agency and his agent’s comments that they will not negotiate with Sandy Alderson and the Mets during the season.
The other dominant New York baseball storyline of late involves Reyes’ crosstown shortstop counterpart Derek Jeter, as he chases the 3,000-hit plateau while fending off the critics who point to the numbers and note that his expiration date as a useful player is rapidly approaching.
This is the first time in recent memory that both New York shortstops have found themselves at the center of the media’s attention during the same season; however, with Jeter nearing the end of the line and Reyes in the midst of his best season ever, the mood surrounding both players has been unsurprisingly disparate. Jayson Stark recently wrote an article about the lack of fanfare going along with Jeter’s chase of 3,000; meanwhile, Reyes’ fast start is the runaway hot topic this season. The latter got me thinking: is Jose Reyes’ season as unprecedented as it has been portrayed by the media? And is Reyes’ season better than Jeter at his peak? Jose Reyes is having a fantastic season, but let’s not forget about the other New York shortstop whose earlier career has been overshadowed by his recent struggles. Counting statistics may show how Reyes’ 2011 pace is one of the greatest seasons ever by a shortstop—but if you look beyond the traditional numbers, Derek Jeter’s career year of 1999 still reigns supreme at this point.
For the purposes of this post, I’m comparing Reyes’ 2011 pace with Jeter’s 1999 season. Reyes in 2011 and Jeter in 1999 are both subpar defensively according to UZR, but until the Field F/X data becomes available I’m going to rely solelyon offensive WAR (oWAR) to compare the two. This seems fair because Reyes’ 2011 has been hyped primarily due to his offensive output.
The following charts show:
1) Jeter’s 1999 traditional statistics vs. Reyes’ 2011 traditional statistics
2) Jeter’s 1999 advanced metrics vs. Reyes’ 2011 advanced metrics
- For both of Reyes’ charts, I doubled his statistics to reach his “pace” since he has played 80 games this season.
- I added a second row using the ZIPS projections for Reyes so we can spot regression from his pace.
1) Traditional Numbers
Looking at the traditional metrics, I highlighted the categories that were dominated by one player or the other and the ones that are essentially equivalent. I also included the ZIPS projections for Reyes to see if they were consistent with his current pace. ZIPS projects Reyes to regress as seen by the 8 categories in red. If we look only at the ZIPS projections, Reyes tops Jeter in only triples, stolen bases, and strikeouts. Jeter had significantly more HR, RBI, and BB, while Reyes had more H, 2B, 3B, SB, and fewer K’s when looking at Reyes’ pace. We now know of course that Reyes will likely not achieve his pace because of his recent hamstring injury and trip to the DL.
2) Advanced Metrics
While Jose Reyes is having an excellent year, it’s a bit premature to anoint him as the best shortstop we’ve ever seen. Derek Jeter’s 1999 is as good, if not better than Jose Reyes’ 2011 pace/projected numbers. Reyes strikes out less than Jeter did, and his wRC+ is 7% better—not a huge margin, but Jeter ranks ahead of Reyes in seven other categories, including wOBA and WPA by a significant amount.
If we examine the ZIPS projections, Reyes’ final numbers don’t even compare to Jeter’s 1999. Of course, this exercise merely juxtaposes each shortstop’s best offensive season. Quickly looking at their careers, Reyes has had only two 5-plus oWAR seasons. Jeter has had 11 seasons of 5-plus oWAR and has only three seasons in which he was not worth 4-plus oWAR. Reyes, on the other hand, already has six seasons in which he did not produce more than 4 oWAR. Even as Jeter is entering the twilight of his career and Reyes is the new back-page story, let’s not forget how great a player Jeter has been for a very long time.
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3 Responses to Guest Post: Jose Reyes’ 2011 vs. Derek Jeter’s 1999
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1999 Jeter batted mostly second between leadoff hitter Knoblauch and #3 hitter O’Neill. 2011 Reyes has batted mostly leadoff or leadoff every start. I could care less about the Mets so much I don’t even know who their #2 hitter is, but I doubt he’s anywhere close to being as good as 1999 Jeter.
Reyes is doing what he’s doing three years older than 1999 Jeter with way more mileage under his belt since 1999 was Jeter’s fourth full season while Reyes is in his ninth season and I wanna say sixth or seventh full season overall as I know he has had some seasons shortnened with injury.
Reyes has never had the luxury of an occasional DH start like Jeter has – has he ever started at DH in an interleague game?
Reyes is doing what he’s doing in a walk year whereas Jeter’s 1999 was I believe the last year the Yankees had him without having to go to arbitration. Jeter also had the comfort of two World Series rings whereas Reyes still has no rings yet is producing his finest season at perhaps one of the darkest times if not the darkest time in Mets history with all the off-season drama with the lawsuit against the Mets and long-term injuries to key players (Santana, Wright, Davis.)
Reyes is still at the top of his game defensively and on his way to another Gold Glove at SS whereas 1999 Jeter didn’t win a Gold Glove.
The offense surrounding 2011 Reyes is nowhere near as potent as the offense surrounding 1999 Jeter. Take Jeter out of the 1999 Yankees lineup at this point in the year and they probably don’t win the World Series, but take Reyes out of the 2011 Mets lineup for the rest of the year and the Mets do far worse as a non-contender and they could be dead as a competitive franchise and one free agents want to sign with for years to come if they lost Reyes to free agency.
1999 Jeter was great, but I think 2011 Reyes will be greater if he finishes around his projections because it’s Reyes’ walk year. Jeter had no pressure to win in 1999 as he was just part of the first Yankees World Championship since 1978 (1996) and one of the greatest World Series winning teams of all time (1998.)
Conclusion: 2011 Reyes > 1999 Jeter if 2011 Reyes finishes around his projections.
A few points:
1) Jeter did not DH once in 1999
2) The hitting environment is accounted for by the statistics that measure relative performance (wRC+, OPS+, etc.). You are absolutely right that Reyes is slightly ahead of Jeter in these categories, but the margin is hardly significant. This argument is also dependent on Reyes duplicating his performance in the 2nd half–very unlikely as ZIPS expects a regression and his recent injury.
3) Even though there have been studies that refute the effect of the “walk-year” on performance, let’s assume players either exceed or regress from their normal performance because of added incentive and extra pressure respectively (Beltre with the Dodgers, Pujols so far in 2011). If so, then your argument would support the fact that Reyes has more incentive to perform at a higher level in 2011 than Jeter in 1999 because it’s Reyes’ walk-year.
4) The fact that Reyes “is on his way to another gold glove” and that Jeter didn’t win one in 1999 is irrelevant. Should Jeter have won his most recent Gold Gloves? Probably not. To the eye, Reyes looks fantastic with the glove, but he has performed below average in 2011 according to UZR. Even with a larger sample size, 3+ years of UZR data, Reyes would not be the best defensive shortstop in the NL. The article focused on offense, but even if you consider defense, Gold Gloves should be left out of the discussion.
Great post Sam! Thanks for writing.