Let the debate rage: Jeter to CF

For any of you reading here longer than a week surely knows, I have been openly discussing the next move of Derek Sanderson Jeter. His contract is up after next year. He will be 37 years old. He will likely be less than 100 hits from 3,000. He will no longer be even a mediocre defensive shortstop; he will be something worse. But no matter what he is as a player after the 2010 season, he still will be Cap'n Jetes, survivor from the Dynasty days, our Captain Clutch, #2. And moving on from that could be as painful and bitter an exercise as we'll see, unless he initiates something.

Christina Kahrl from BP (via ESPN, Insider Access required) had an article which sounds awfully like some of the things I have been saying here for quite some time:

Obviously, getting Jeter's buy-in is a real-world problem for a team with a real-world need for a center fielder, because the margins are too thin in the tough AL East for the Yankees to really rely on the wrong Cabrera in the lineup. Crying over last year's spilled Melky won't help them catch up to the Rays and Red Sox, but signing Orlando Cabrera would provide the team with a useful-enough hitter, and a slick-fielding asset at short could make a small but important difference to a bad defensive ballclub. Last season's Yankees ranked 25th in the major leagues in defensive efficiency (their ability to convert balls in play into outs) and park-adjusted defensive efficiency, and no positions see more chances than the middle infield. For all his defensive warts, Jeter has a strong arm and has always earned praise for his ability to track bloopers and pop-ups. These skills should both translate in center field. And simply by providing his usual dose of high OBP, he'd be a much better option than running Melky Cabrera out to center for 117 games, which the Yankees did last year.

Swapping Jeter out at short to address the team's need for a center fielder would be the sort of win-win move that can let the Yankees return to the top of the standings while breaking in their new stadium, and it does nothing to damage the Captain's place in franchise history. If Yount or Ripken, MVP winners and top stars in their day, could agree to help their teams and themselves to make these switches, you need to ask yourself why Jeter should be any different, especially when the need has gone from debatable to obvious.

The only way this happens is that it has to at least appear that Jeter is the catalyst for this move, not Cashman or (heaven forbid) Hank/Hal. And even then, at this late date, could you find a buyer for Melky? Or do you just grab Orlando Cabrera and move Jeter to CF and later worry about Melky? What if Jeter fails miserably in CF? Do you jerk his chain under the brightest of lights, risking embarrassing your cornerstone? This has to come from Jeter, or it has to at least be told that way, if it's ever going to happen.

No, this can't happen this year. And it might not happen next year. We might come back after the 2010 season and settle in for another Varitek-like showdown, pitting the legendary Captain of a legendary team against its ownership and fans. And we saw with Varitek that the fans sided with management this season; will the Yanks fans still side with Jeter if his decline lasts two more years and he wants in-the-prime money to remain at SS?

Jeter's seemingly had a fairly solid grasp of his position in the game, with the organization. Totally self-aware of everything about him and the game. Honestly, the one thing that no one seems to want to even consider is that after 2010, Jeter realizes that he's no longer playing to the level in which he's accustomed and simply decides to walk away, retire. Really, I see this as entirely more likely than him hanging on just to play. I just can't see that happening. Jeter won't let himself become baseball's version of Brett Favre. I think he retires before he allows others to discuss him as an impediment to the team's on-field performance.

I can see him calling a press conference right around Thanksgiving 2010 to tell the world he's hanging them up for good, that his wife (some uber super-model/actress/starlet) is expecting their first child and he's ready to move onto the next phase of his life rather than change positions or go and fight for a job. He'd take a few questions, say all the right things, smile that trademark smile with a wink, be ultra-polite with everyone, say thank you and be gone.

And that will be that. The era will end.


UPDATE (2/6/09, 10:25am): Joel Sherman of the NY Post has something about this (thanks to Tim at MLBTradeRumors.com for the tip):

But know this - Yankee officials already talk privately about dreading D(erek)-Day.

After all, what team official wants to tell Jeter he has to take a pay cut or has to move positions or - gulp - just has to move on? How would you like that on your baseball epitaph: You were the Yankee executive who told Derek Jeter thanks for the memories?

Of course, the alternative is not too appetizing either. Because kowtowing to Jeter's legacy by paying him lavishly and keeping him at short means tying yourself to a late-30s icon well beyond his expiration date.