Yankees: Let the haters weep on Derek Jeter’s Hall of Fame Day

It’s a year late, but New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter is being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday afternoon alongside former Colorado Rockies slugger Larry Walker.

Jeter missed out on being a unanimous electee by one single vote, and that baseball writer has opted to keep their ballot private because, well, you know how New Yorkers can be. A coward move nonetheless. The haters got their wish. Jeter will not be enshrined in historic fashion.

Ah, and speaking of the haters. They’ll be out in full force trying to invalidate one of the greatest individual careers the sport has ever seen. In our modern day contrarian-driven society, we’d expect nothing less.

All those Boston Red Sox fans claiming Jeter was the more overrated player of all time while worshipping Nomar Garciaparra and Dustin Pedroia … funny how this works, isn’t it?

So, here we are, dedicating a post to all the suckers out there who live to debate when a debate isn’t warranted. For those who can’t enjoy anything, so they try to spoil everyone else’s fun. For those who have spent so much time arguing irrefutable topics that their equally dumb parents think they should’ve gone to law school. To do what? Fail out after three weeks?

We’d call this a waste of time, but it brings us as much joy to make you look like a tree stump as you get by riling up folks behind a fake Twitter handle accompanied by a poorly photoshopped profile pic of your favorite player, who probably sucks too.

Yankees legend Derek Jeter is a Hall of Famer. Cry about it more, losers.

Derek Jeter won five World Series championships. That’s as many as the Boston Red Sox have won since 1918. Derek Jeter has won five Silver Slugger awards. The only other players to have won five or more since the award’s inception in 1980 are David Oritz (at DH), Wade Boggs, Ryne Sandberg, Barry Bonds, Barry Larkin and Mike Piazza. Those are all Hall of Famers or future Hall of Famers. Derek Jeter has played in the most postseason games (158) of all time. That’s an entire extra MLB season on his resume and 23% more than any other player in history, and he hit .308 with an .838 OPS in October/November.

Derek Jeter played 20 MLB seasons and appeared in 2,747 games. That’s an average of 137 per year. He played in fewer that 148 games just five times, and two came during his rookie season and farewell season, the latter of which which he was 40 years old (and still played in 145). From a historical perspective, it’s certainly debatable because the playoffs were much more brief for decades and decades, but to refute that, all it means is that it’s harder to reach the ultimate goal of winning it all during the modern era.

Jeter did that five times and appeared in two other Fall Classics as well as three other AL Championship Series.

In the modern game, so many fans complain about players getting rest or missing time due to minor/soft tissue injuries. If we’re going to make that a bigger topic of discussion, then how can you refute Jeter’s availability over the course of a two-decade career? How many other players can say they’ve lasted that long? Only 28. Only 14 players have more All-Star Game appearances than he does.

Also, how many of you whine about the lack of clutch players in the spotlight, especially those atop the game? Care to look at Jeter’s career stats in that department?

• With RISP — .301 with an .801 OPS and 1,027 RBI
• With 2 outs and RISP — .298 with an .816 OPS and 444 RBI
• Late & Close — .283 with a .776 OPS and 195 RBI
• High-Leverage — .311 with an .809 OPS and 458 RBI

And let’s talk about our favorite topic. Defense! Jeter was a -9.4 dWAR for his career. He was good for -162 Defensive Runs Saved. However, what many fail to realize is that a majority of that negative dWAR came during his final four years as a player … aged 37-40. So did 57 of those calculated for the negative DRS. He still won five Gold Gloves. He still made just 16 errors in 158 career postseason games (1,425 innings) and had a .977 fielding percentage when it mattered most. At arguably the hardest position in the sport.

Plus, the eye test is a thing. Errors happen. Jeter was reliable and steadfast when many others would crumble and fold.

We’d love to hear your “argument” for how Derek Jeter is “overrated.” Everyone understands hatred, rivalries, jealously, and everything else that comes with watching your most hated enemies experience any sort of fortune. But respect? Where has that gone?

The only explanation is that you have none for yourself. And for that, we are sorry.

Yankees: Derek Jeter’s quote on his legacy in baseball will fire up Yankee fans

Yankees legend Derek Jeter was quoted as saying that he "wanted to be remembered as a Yankee, that's it" when discussing his place in baseball history.