The Sometimes Best Ever Sometimes

This is our second installment of a new feature called: “What in the hell is this manager talking about?” A couple of weeks ago, we featured Royals' manager Buddy Bell explaining, well, something about his team’s confusion and inability to hit Jon Garland.

Today, we have Yankees manager Joe Torre talking about Derek Jeter’s defense.

You would have to say Jeter is unique in baseball history in this way: There are people who think he’s an absolutely terrific defensive player and others who think he’s an absolutely awful defensive player. I’m not sure any one player’s defense has created such a wide gap of opinions. Omar Vizquel, maybe. Andruw Jones, maybe. Luis Aparicio, maybe.

I would say the Jeter gap is larger. Jeter has won three Gold Gloves. And there are respected baseball people – friends of mine – who have spent a lot of time studying him and believe he’s the worst defensive shortstop in the American League. Some think he's the worst ever.

My own personal feelings tend to lean toward the latter – in my view, he’s always been a below average defensive shortstop. He does that neat jump throw thing from the hole, which is fun to watch and sometimes compensates for his below-average shortstop arm. On the other hand, I’ve seen balls skip by him that couldn’t have been more than three or four feet to his left. He’s fairly steady – doesn’t make too many errors – but he’s brutal on the double play. He’s alert, and he has an excellent knack for making a big play. On the other hand, he just doesn’t get to many balls (though his range factor is up again this year). All in all, I’d rather have him at second base.

But he’s such a good hitter that the Jeter halo effect glows brighter than Times Square. Today, Newsday has one of those periodic stories that will appear in the New York papers, the one where Jeter's supporters fight back against those nasty “numbers” and “defensive statistics,” and explain that his brilliance often goes undetected. This is rich, by the way, the idea that anything good that Derek Jeter does could possibly go undetected. When Jeter kicks a rock, there are three stories in the New York papers about how he’s cleaning up the streets.

Still, it’s a perfectly legitimate and entertaining story with perfectly legitimate and entertaining opinions. Defense is a mysterious racket. There are very smart baseball people who think Jeter’s defense is good.

Then we get the quote from Torre.

He says Jeter is, “as good as I’ve ever seen going out there and sometimes making acrobatic plays.”

OK, seriously, what the hell does that mean? I’ve read in 20 times, and I still have no idea. Is he saying that Jeter is as good as he’s ever seen at making acrobatic plays? No he can’t be saying that right? He managed Ozzie Smith. But look again: He’s not saying that. There’s the precious placement of the word “sometimes.

See, Jeter is as good as he’s ever seen at SOMETIMES making acrobatic plays.

So let’s see how this works in other scenarios:
-- Angel Berroa is the best I’ve ever seen going out there at sometimes getting a hit.
-- George W. Bush is the best president ever at sometimes speaking eloquently
-- Phil Mickelson is the best golfer I’ve ever seen at sometimes winning a tournament.
-- Shaq is the best basketball player I’ve ever seen at sometimes making free throws.
-- Carrottop is the best comedian I’ve ever seen at sometimes making me laugh.

Actually, you can cross out the last one. Carrottop has never made me laugh. Hey, I realize that Joe Torre needs to stand up for his player. And Joe is a pretty straightforward and honest soul, so he has to know deep down that while Jeter can (and often does) rise to the moment, he’s fairly blah every day at shortstop. Torre said what he had to say. But it’s pretty funny anyway.

If you see a classic manager's quote, send it along to postmaster@soulofbaseball.com.