Derek Jeter announced today that he will retire at the end of the 2014 MLB season.  This is truly the end of an era.  The last true dynasty in MLB was the 1996 – 2000 Yankees team with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada as the young core putting the Yankees back on top after an 18 year drought.  It had even been 15 years since the Yankees had made the playoffs before the Captain and the other members of what could be called The Fantastic Four arrived in the Bronx.  If old Yankee Stadium was “The House That Ruth Built,” then the new Yankee Stadium is “The House That Jeter Built.”  One by one, those four have retired leaving Jeter as the last man standing and now this will be his final year.

His list of accomplishments go beyond making the Yankees the Evil Empire again and breathing life into George Steinbrenner.  It goes beyond making the Yankees a winner and Steinbrenner buying up every single top free agent in baseball to field an All Star team every season.  Derek Jeter has cemented his spot in baseball lore.  He is a 5 time World Series champion including 4 in 5 years.  He has played in 7 World Series.  He was in the playoffs 16 times in 19 seasons (he didn’t make postseason roster in 1995 after playing in 15 games at end of regular season or it would be 17 times in 19 years.)  He won the Rookie of the Year in 1996.  He is a 13 time All Star, 5 time Gold Glove and 4 time Silver Slugger.  8 times he has finished in the Top 10 for MVP although he has never won the award.  He has a career WAR of 71.6.  In the postseason, he has a .308 batting average with a .374 on base percentage and an OPS of .838.

Some may question his defensive ability and discount the 5 Gold Gloves.  It is a biased popularity contest after all.  However, he has made two of the most iconic defensive plays of my lifetime:

Oakland Athletics fans just threw up a little in their mouth because Giambi was safe on that play but the skill, reflexes and quick thinking to even try that was amazing and it helped the Yankees defeat the Athletics in the 2001 ALDS.  All anyone has to do is mention Derek Jeter and “The Flip” and every baseball fan knows that play.

The other defensive play that every baseball fan can recall off the top of their head is Jeter catching a ball and diving 5 rows into the stands in a game against the Boston Red Sox in 2004.

Derek Jeter may not have been as overrated with the glove at shortstop as Ozzie Smith (oooooooooooh…look at the backflip the showoff just did before the game…he’s great even though he couldn’t hit his way out of a wet paper bag,) but he got the job done.  Since the Yankees were in the playoffs every year from 1996 – 2007, I think they survived just fine with his “questionable defense.”

Another thing that cannot be understated about Derek Jeter’s success is his character.  He has played in the New York media spotlight his entire career.  He has avoided any and all scandals that has plagued baseball.  No one even whispers his name when it comes to steroids and PEDs.  In a 24/7 media blitz world that we live in today, the worst thing that anyone can say about Derek Jeter is that he has slept with a lot of beautiful women and given them gift baskets the next morning.  There have been no stories of dozens of children with different women.  There’s been no stories of cops called for domestic disputes.  There’s been no drunk driving reports.  He has stayed out of trouble and performed at a high level with all eyes on him.  Many players have wilted in the glare of the NYC spotlight.  Many players won’t sign with the Yankees because they don’t want that pressure.  Derek Jeter has accepted that spotlight and performed at the highest level for 19 years without having a truly black mark against his name.

Lastly, the most amazing accomplishment that Derek Jeter has achieved (IMO) is his 3316 career hits.  That places him 10th all time.  He is 120 hits away from passing Cap Anson for 6th all time and he is 199 hits away from passing Tris Speaker for 5th place all time.  Of all the great players that have worn Yankees pinstripes, none have come close to that.  I have blogged before about where Jeter could end up on that list but I assumed he would play at least until the end of 2015 making 5th place almost a cinch.  At the time, I also didn’t know that he would miss basically all of 2013 due to an injury.  Sabermetric gurus have devalued hits and a lot of other traditional stats in baseball.  “A walk is as good as a hit.”  Well, except if the hit is a double, triple, home run or even just a single that advances a runner from 1st to 3rd or scores a runner from second.  The sabermaticians leave that part out of the quote.  Same as they leave out from their argument that a “strikeout is an out just like any other out” except for the sac bunt or sac fly or groundball to the right side that advances a runner or scores a runner unlike a strikeout.  Well Derek Jeter has more hits than all but 9 other players in major league history.  I think that is a pretty big f’n deal.  He has a career batting average of .312 and an on base percentage of .381.  Neither one of those numbers are too shabby.  Yeah maybe he could have walked more and gotten on base at a slightly higher clip but those are still great numbers.  How many shortstops in baseball would kill for those numbers?

Derek Jeter is going to retire at the end of the 2014 season with a long list of accomplishments.  He should be an unanimous selection to Cooperstown but everyone knows that some douchenozzle media guy will refuse to vote for him because no one else was unanimous.  Baseball is going to be worse off without him because he is the face of the MLB and I don’t know if there is anyone ready to take that crown and wear it with as much dignity and grace as Jeter has.