This update is powered by an amazing mathematician:
- How many records with Jeter and A-Rod set in Yankees unis?:
. . . If he stays healthy, Rodriguez, who turns 35 in July, is an overwhelming favorite to shatter Barry Bonds’s career record of 762 home runs. Sometime near the 2011 All-Star Game break, Jeter, who currently has 2,747 hits, is projected to get his 3,000th.
. . . Only eight players have amassed more than 3,400, and only five have reached the 3,500 mark, beginning with Tris Speaker at 3,514.
Whether ranking in the top five will mean something to Jeter and motivate him to keep playing remains to be seen. . . .
Rodriguez, meanwhile, begins this season with 583 home runs and should surpass 600 sometime in late June or early July, reach 700 in 2013 and overtake Bonds in late 2015 or early 2016, when he will be 40 years old.
. . . The most crucial variable is health. Rodriguez missed 38 games last season following hip surgery. Jeter is a remarkably durable player — he has played at least 148 games in all but one of his 14 full seasons — but shortstop is a demanding position. If he continues to play there and perform at a high level, he would buck the trend.
- Curtis Granderson, on Jeter possibly NOT retiring as a Yankee:
“It’d be tough,” said Curtis Granderson, the Yankees’ new center fielder. “But it’d kind of be like Ken Griffey Jr. Everybody in here who’s a baseball fan knows Ken Griffey Jr. as a Seattle Mariner. Then he goes to Cincinnati and Chicago and back to Seattle. Jeter’s definitely in that category. If Ken Griffey can move teams, you never know.”
- Jayson Stark weighs in on Jeter’s future:
The only other intrigue when they get to the negotiating table is how long a contract they feel comfortable giving a player of Jeter’s age. And the only barometer we have to go by is this: A-Rod is signed through age 42, if that means anything.
But once the negotiating begins, you don’t need to be a Steinbrenner brother to know how this will turn out. This story won’t have a Johnny Damon kind of ending or a Hideki Matsui kind of ending or a Bobby Abreu kind of ending.
You are never, ever going to have to worry about turning on your TV next winter and seeing Jeter tell you he always has wanted to be a Brewer or an Astro.
This man doesn’t just play for the Yankees. He’s the heart of the Yankees.
Poll Time!:
[poll id=”49″]
- Happy 47th birthday to a Yankee fan favorite, Paul O’Neill.
- Stump Merrill, manager of the underwhelming ’90 and ’91 squads, turns 66 today.
- Happy 70th birthday to the man who helped bring Sparky Lyle to NY, Danny Cater.
Back on Monday.
The mathemagician rocks!
I love the whole genre of kickass nerdiness.
"If Ken Griffey can move teams you never know."
Score Granderson's comment E8. The centerfielder forgets Griffey Jr. asked to be traded to Cincy to be closer to home. Jeter will not leave the Yankees under any such circumstances.
Jete ain't goin anywhere, no way. Joe quit too soon. Lou got sick. They screwed the Babe. Mick, too late, but we still got to see him play over 140 games during 3 of his last five years. So ferme la mouth about the resigning. It is a non-story, especially since his skills haven't declined and his chance for greatness still exists.
To Mr. Granderson, a personna who has not impressed me yet with either his words or his play, you too could button your lip. The analogy to Jr. is inapt. Griffey's father starred in Cinci, a baseball town with a history older than the Yanks. Jr. starred at Moeller High and had it not been for the draft where Seattle took him as number one, we would expect that he would have played in Cincy, the town he returned to after his skills had waned and the list of injuries had piled up. Though he didn't unretire Perez number, it may be said that he opted to make money by staying in the game and lost a little bit of respect by what now appears to be too long. I don't know Griffey as a Seattle Mariner other than to say that is where he got his numbers. And, I am sure when he was growing up, he didn't see himself as a Mariner.
Jete is quite another story. When the final chapter is written, I wonder whether this life long Yankee fan who now occupies the SS spot and who is introduced by Bob Shepperd, a voice like no other, will be one of the owners of the franchise, something that just money couldn't buy.
Of course the comparison to Griffey is flawed. This is yet another example of why one should rarely listen seriously to what players have to say.
Granderson : Player Comparisons :: Bronx Banter : Cutting the New Guy Some Slack
[2] [4] I don't think the comparison is flawed. Regardless of the circumstances of his departure, at the time, the thought of Griffey leaving the Mariners was foreign. He seemed like the ideal one franchise guy, but it didn't work out that way.
As for not taking players seriously, as off base as they can be, I'd rather listen to them than a vast majority of the pundits out there.
[6] yeah but Griffey forced a trade going into his age 30 season, at the time it looked like he still had at least 6 or 7 highly productive years left in him not to mention being the favorite to make a run at Aaron. Plus he was going from a team that was thought to be on the downturn to one that was considered an up-and-comer. Obviously none of it worked out that way.
Jeter meanwhile would be leaving a championship-caliber team after his age 36 season to play out the last few years of his career, where exactly?
Other than the "wow it sure would be weird" factor, its pretty flawed.
[6] it doesn't make sense to ignore the circumstances. Jeter's current situation (16 years, 5 world championships) is nothing like Griffey's request to go home 10 years ago. There isnt a player in the game more intrinsicly tied to their team than Jeter (ok, and Mo).
I'm surprised Granderson doesn't realize or comprehend this.
[5] cut him slack. what does that mean? ignore him?
[7] I think Granderson's only point was the “wow it sure would be weird” factor. In fact, that is the only point one could make because there are no circumstances surrounding Jeter's departure because, well, he hasn't and isn't likely to do so.
[5,8] I agree to cut him slack. OK great, Granderson (whose been here for about 20 minutes) thinks its possible Jeter could leave. His comment only carries as much weight as you choose to give it. This is a non-story.
Seemed to me that Curtis wasn't saying anything other than:
would be hard to imagine Jeter playing on another team, but other big stars have done it, so youneverknow.
It's not extremely well thought out on his part, but not exactly the straw that stirs the drink either.
also, i'm just guessing, other players probably are not in the habit of compromising each other's bargaining positions by making public statements about how they'll never, ever leave a team. probably the default position is to just say, youneverknow.
[0]
FYI, I reworked the poll question to be a bit more clear.
[8] Nothing in the statement suggests Granderson doesn't understand the differences. It seems like a very simple comparison to me that illustrates a point just fine.
[10] Instead of getting on Granderson, people should be criticizing the lazy journalism that has a reporter ask a player what he thinks about another player leaving. It's beyond inane. It's not like Granderson called a press conference to discuss his position on Jeter possibly leaving. An intrepid reporter asked him a question and he gave an answer that I think is relevant in the context of how dull the issue really is.
[14] to be fair, we are talking about spring training coverage here. Reporters end up torturing 800 words out of "Swisher and Gardner played catch today." The whole thing is an exercise in inanity.
So this is what its like at the Banter on a quiet February morning, a few days into Spring Training, the year after the Yanks win it all.
If worrying over an off-the-cuff remark by Curtis Granderson about Derek Jeter's contract - something Granderson has no control over and almost certainly has no insight into - is the most important thing we have to be concerned with, this should be a relaxing spring indeed.
Nothing to see here, move along.
(FWIW, I think Jon got it right in [11], as did william in [6] and [9].)
[15] Have I got a link for you, Raging!
Go here and enjoy writing your own inane spring training story, Mad Libs style.
[5],[8] I think it means don't burn him in effigy for an innocuous comment. He may have been put on the spot for all we know, and he doesn't have to be a historian of the Yankees to be a player, never mind a top player. For all the folks who ranted about Johnny Damon being cut loose and not re-signed under any circumstances, why is there no similar outcry about him saying that he always wanted to play in Detroit "since he was with the Red Sox?" Obviously that made no sense, but I didn't here a peep out of anyone here.
As for Griffey, he may have always wanted to play for his hometown team, but as fate would have it he played his prime years for the Seattle Mariners. That could have happened to Jeter easily, but it didn't. Now that he's put in his years here and has become a legend in the process, we have to remember he's not the only one in the equation about whether he comes back or not. For all the credit we give Cashman and the Steinbrenner Bros. for not being stupid, I still remember how they treated Bernie in the end, and I'm not entirely confident that there won't be any issues when the time comes. as counter-intuitive as that would seem. Are they gonna be so gracious if he gets injured? I dunno, but I won't get excited until I "see the check".
Um, is the poll's wording odd? I am not at all confident that Jeter would play for a team other than the Yankees. In fact, I am very confident that Jeter will only play for the Yankees. Both sides need each other and they know it. They'll get a deal done.
[18] nobody's burning Granderson in effigy, just pointing out the flaws in his assessment of the captain's status with the team.
I agree it's totally a non-story, and I'm surprised Kepner included his silly quote in his non-story... but that doesn't mean we have to ignore what Granderson says.
Damon? we've always known he's an idiot.
[19]
Hmmm ... I changed the wording, and updated the post. From my vantagepoint, it now reads ...
How confident are you that Jeter will remain a Yankee for his entire playing career?
==========
That reads much more clearly that I originally had it.
[20] Yes, but he was our idiot for quite some time. That can't be ignored either; especially since up until he signed with Detroit he stated he hoped to still come back somehow, via trade or otherwise. It was just the "not enough money" issue that held that up...
[21] Ah, ok. I had a little problem leaving my comment earlier, took some time as I was logged in and wasn't recognized as being logged in.
is baseball starting again? the offseason goes a lot faster when you win the world series.