The Yankees and Derek Jeter Era.

I’ve had this topic on my mind for quite a few months now. So I figured why not make my first post ever about my favorite team and ball player.

The Yankees handled Derek Jeter and his contact negotiation very unprofessionally, plain and simple. Jeter himself even thought the interactions between the two parties were inappropriate, stating he didn’t like how advertised the monetary discussions were in the media. We all know that Captain Clutch is not a media Diva. He was definitely not the one running to the media broadcasting the discussions between the Yankees and himself.

Derek has won five championships, all with the New York Yankees. That’s right, he has one full fist of bling, all with interlocking NY’s on them. He is a legend, you can put him on the same page as the Babe, or the Iron Horse, or the Yankee Clipper. Yes, I also understand that he also just had the worst season of his career, and he is no spring chicken. Chances are his statistics will start decreasing, but I wouldn’t expect another pedestrian .270BA season out of him. I’d expect him to be right back around his career average this upcoming year (.314).

There was a lot of flak as well when talking about his age. Keep in mind Jeter averages 143 games a year, and that is including 1995 when he played in just 15 games! His shortest (real) season was in 2003 when he played 119 games when he dislocated his shoulder on opening day and was on the DL for six weeks. That year he was in the running for the batting title, and lost by 2 points.

Derek Jeter is the face of the current New York Yankees and I could never imagine him in another uniform. I would bet he felt the same way. When the Steinbrenner’s said “Go test free agency” that was like throwing up the middle finger right at their captain. After that, I was in awe at the way the Yanks were handling the situation. I didn’t expect the Yankees to offer a contract immediately, nor did I expect them to throw A-Rod numbers at an aging shortstop, but to tell him go and see if some team suits you up for a lot of money as if they were mocking him is just crazy to me. The Yankees knew no other teams were willing to match what they would offer monetarily and made that crystal clear to their seven year captain.

The process was questionable, but fortunately things worked out and the Yankees kept their ’96 ROY, 11x all-star, 5x champion, 5x gold glover, all-star mvp, and WS mvp. Cashman made an offer that Jeter couldn’t refuse, albeit it wasn’t for the amount of years Jeter wanted, he is still getting 17 million a year on average for the next three years.

Recently, Cashman announced that if Jeter were to move positions that they would move him to CF. Really? Center field? That, I do not get. The reason you would move Jeter is because of failing health, which usually means loss of speed. Why would you put that in the largest part of Yankee Stadium? In any case, I think Cashman should have kept his mouth shut about this because Jeter’s not going anywhere from his position at least for the next couple years. I mean, Cashman should have gone one step further and announced that when they move Jeter to CF, they can move A-Rod back to SS!

That’s all for now… Expect a new post sometime soon, discussing what off season moves teams around the MLB made and my thoughts.

Pitchers and catchers report in just 15 days!