That smell in the air would be the fresh cut grass.  That sound would be the pop of the ball in a mitt.  This can only mean one thing, Spring Training and the return of the subject scientific poll.  This weeks poll, best to worst fielding shortstops, and that whining you hear(did it ever end!!!!) is the Yankee fans, more specifically the NY Post.  Why are they whining?  Oh because someone by the name of DEREK JETER is ranked the worst fielding shortstop and ALEX RODRIGUEZ is second best.  Wait, how can that be? A-Rod plays third right.  Well the scourge of the NYC use to play short before graciously(never thought I 'd put gracious and A-Rod together) sliding over to third.  The study takes a look at 2002-2005.  Did I mean yet how dumb this poll is.  A-Rod only played short for 2 of those years before he joined the Yanks.  The top 2 on the list Clint Barmes, COL and Jason Bartlett, TB(anyone who watched the Twinkies knows this is a farce).  Looking only at the the stats over those 4 years at MLB level you'll see how biased this study was.  Stats thanks to The Baseball Cube.


Player     Games     Errors

Barmes     113          20
Bartlett       82            7
A-Rod        320         18
Jeter         589          56

Game totals are for all games played while listed as a shortstop not just starting at short.

While I do believe that Jeter is one of the all time most overrated shortstops, I don't believe this study shows it very well.  A better study would have been of the players over common years at the same position.  But stats don't tell it all.  Three words for you: 

Rawlings Gold Glove

Anyone familiar with this award knows it is the biggest joke award in all of sports, just ask Rafael Palmeiro.  Jeter is more a player of situation than of greatness.  You could have put almost ANY shortstop on the Yankee teams he's been on and they would have still won 3 Gold Gloves and 4 World Series rings.  The Gold Glove award has nothing to do with defense.  Jeter won those awards because of being a Yankee and to his great hitting.  A-Rod on the other hand has always been a great all-around player, with exception of 06 season in which he couldn't field.  The New Yorkers who are whining aren't being objective.  They always liked Jeter because he's a nice guy, and hated A-Rod because he's been, to put it nicely, a pompous jerk and an arrogant, overpaid baby.  Which is why, we get stupid unprovable studies like this one released every year that get people's panties in a bunch. 

But they definitely make for fun chatter and still leave room for this: 

The Yankees suck!  Think I'm wrong.   Prove it!