Derek Jeter is a free agent the way your car is in Delaware while driving down I-95. It is a necessary but temporary state of affairs and will not last long. No sane person thinks Jeter will be anything but a Yankee when all is said and done. Everyone accepts that the Yankees will overpay to keep in the Bronx, and I have no problem with that. Hell, it ain’t my money. Give him a billion dollars a year for all I care.
However, the technical possibility that Jeter could play for another team, like any mention of Jeter period, is enough to set off sports scribes, like a gritty whistle only they can hear. Just witness the harrumphing when some folks dared suggest his Gold Glove award might not be justifiable. Professional moron Craig Carton got his panties in a knot and protested angrily that Jeter had made only 6 errors in 2010, blissfully unaware of just how useless the error stat is to assess a player’s fielding ability.
Most of the ink spilled has been along the lines of what Peter Gammons tweeted last week: “The Yankees need Jeter’s brand. Jeter needs the Yankee brand”. He repeated this nearly verbatim when appearing on Mike Francesa’s show last week. I heard Jared Max, the sports update guy on WCBS News Radio (the Yankees’ flagship station), talk about how the Yankees would benefit from, among other things, having Jeter get his 3000th hit in pinstripes.
Would they? Is this really a partnership of equals? I would say not, and I think the early returns would indicate this as well.
Jeter definitely needs the Yankees, but the Yankees do not need him–and this has nothing to do with his worth as a player. It has to do with legacy. Jeter has one to protect, and the Yankees don’t. Or rather, their legacy can not be dented by anything Jeter related. Sign him for a 100 years or trade him to the Yakult Swallows–either way, the Yankees will remain the Yankees.
When I hear people insist otherwise–that the Yankees need Jeter as much as he needs them–it reminds me of a line from The Simpsons, when Krusty tried to pawn off his long-lost daughter’s violin: “It isn’t worth much money, but the sentimental value is through the roof!”
Continue reading Jeter and the Yankees: Who Completes Whom?