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11/03/2004: As mentioned two posts down....
New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter won his first AL Gold Glove yesterday. But there's at least one factor that makes you wonder if it comes with an implicit conditional.... From The Star-Ledger:
Turns out, Alex Rodriguez coming to the Yankees helped Derek Jeter in at least one very specific way.
With Rodriguez having shifted to third base, and Cleveland's Omar Vizquel having slipped, the Yankees' All-Star shortstop was able to win his first Gold Glove award.
...
Jeter has long ranked at or near the bottom of the league among defensive shortstops by most statistical evaluations, and he lacks the range of players such as Boston's Orlando Cabrera and Baltimore's Miguel Tejada. Rodriguez won the Gold Glove at shortstop in 2002 and 2003 but played third base this season. Vizquel, who won the AL Gold Glove at shortstop nine straight years from 1993-2001, is 37 years old and not the player he used to be.
Len on 11.03.04 @ 06:42 AM CST
Replies: 2 comments
on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004 at 2:12 PM CST, Roboto said
And, it also didn't hurt him that the 3B playing right next to him was last year's Gold Glover at SS.
Statistical evaluations don't matter with GGs anyway; the voters don't look at range factors etc.
on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004 at 2:53 PM CST, Len Cleavelin said
Not only did it not hurt him that A-rod was playing third, I think that's what the sportswriter meant in the first couple lines of that excerpt.
:-)
Exactly the point about the voters, though, who are (I think) managers and coaches, not baseball statheads.