NFT: A few Yankee questions

Is an average to slightly above average fielder. He can make every play Jeter made. He has better range and he has a strong arm. Needs to clean up and cut down on the errors but 14 isn't a huge problem. Didi is a very good player, should be interesting what happens to him when Torres/Mateo move through the system. Hope he sticks with the club and works on getting his walk rate/plate discipline up.

I never seen Kingman play so I am not sure about the comparison to Judge. Looking at stats only, Kingman seems to be a Chris Carter type where he is very under valued in this era. So based on that I hope not. Judge should be a better defensive player and hopefully can hit better than .236. That being said Kingman was also a 113 wRC+ career player... He wouldn't be a bust but hopefully he is a better all around player.

Austin has an exciting bat for sure against lefties but his .621 OPS last year against right handers is concerning. Not a huge sample size so hopefully it improves and he also adjusts.

I don't think there is any chance for Fraizer or Torres to see time out of Spring Training. They have too much to learn and also it would start there MLB service time clock.

Shouldn't change things for the longer term but it's unlikely he'll be on the big team coming out of spring training this year.

I think he's far better than average.

In comment 13368709 yatqb said:

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I think he's far better than average.

Didi is far better than average and is probably better than DJ ever was in the field.

but he's a really good fielder. He could be a gold glover eventually.

in high school and college, I tend to watch those two positions closer than all other fielding positions. From my ever so humble perspective and point of view, Didi is one hell of a slick fielder and should be a gold glove candidate. He's smooth as glass with his movements, has a knack to make the right first step to get a jump on the ball, and has a rifle arm. From a fielding point of view, he's slick, slick, slick.

He also turns the double nicely and seems to be a teammate with a nice air of humility about him which is great on any team. I love the guy and his lefty bat in the lineup and especially the way he's adjusted and learned to hit lefties. And at 27 yrs old, he will be at his peak playing years for the next 3 or 4 years

Not quite elite, but one of the better gloves at the position. Definitely above average.

I would be fine with him as our SD going forward if not for Torres. Torres has something special though. So Didi is expendable (through trade) soon.

but Torres may be more of an upgrade over Headley or Castro than over Didi, when the time comes. Andujar could break out this year at 3B, but unless Mateo is a better 2B than CF it may make sense to put Torres at second for the time being.

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Is a good player, and he is a good fielder, he is not and never will be Jeter, those who said Jeter was not a good fielder are clueless, those fielding metrics are for fools. Jeter had GREAT hands, he was much better then those who used metrics to analyze him. He went to his right as good as anyone, he caught popups as good as anyone, he made every play he got to, something that is lost on all the fools. After his shoulder separation and over time he did have problems going to his right, big fucking deal, he compensated that by his positioning. Fielding metrics are just plain old stupid, hitting metrics are excellent, don't automatically think that makes fielding metrics good also, it doesn't at all. With all that said, Didi has a chance to become a very good player, if he continues to work hard, and improve on his hitting a little, and his fielding a little, he could become a very good player. When Torres and Mateo are ready then the Yanks can decide what to do, transitioning from short to second is nothing at all, transitioning to third is a very tough transition, but maybe one of those guys could be capable to do it, we will find out in time.

But he's a better glove at SS than Jeter ever was. Jeter was very good on the balls he could get to. Sure handed, but his range was atrocious.

He has a better arm and better range up the middle, not as good as Jeter's hands and not as good to his right either. But potentially he could be a better fielder, right now it is pretty close, but that is not a knock at all on Didi as my opinion of Jeter's fielding is far better then the dumb critics, in fact my opinion overall of Didi is also far better then his critics. he has the chance to be a special player actually. he just got a little later opportunity and developed a little later then some. But his improvement has been eye popping. I could see him being a 20-25 HR guy with 80-90 RBI potential if the lineup improved. If he can improve on making the routine plays at short, he has All Star potential.

Jeter gets shit on by people who look at some phantom range stat. It's dumb. Jeter was an above average defensive player. His range to his left was poor and got very poor as he got older. His range to his right was good when he was younger and eh as he got older. He did so many other great things though. Best player I have ever seen going back on a pop up and that's a very tough play. Always in the right spot, always made the right decisions and always made the plays that he got to. So smooth too.

Didi has the skills to be a better defensive player than Jeter

they're just of limited utility because they're still being developed and because what they seek to capture is pretty speculative. Jeter was a smart player, he positioned himself well (a few years before binders were the rage and so much of everything was orchestrated from the dugout), but his range was a tick above average at his best and well below average at his worst. Didn't mean he wasn't sure handed or smooth, that he couldn't turn a good double play, that he didn't have a big arm, just that his range was limited.

But his ego wouldn't allow that. Defensively, he was never a great shortstop, but he would have been a great centerfielder. Tracking fly balls was his best defensive ability anyway, and he had the speed and arm to excel in center.

was definitely limited. Theres so much more to defense though.

he never had the range Didi has. I'm as big a Jeter fan as anyone, and agree he was a better fielder than he often got credit for, but even in his prime he was somewhat limited in range, especially going to his left up the middle. Didi gets to balls up the middle Jeter never came close to.

There was a recent article about how the Yanks will be giving Mateo and Torres time at other positions bc they currently think Didi is still a better fielder at SS than they will turn out to be

In comment 13368982 Keith said:

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was definitely limited. Theres so much more to defense though.

There is more to defense, of course, but getting to balls in play is really at the top of the list. Arm strength is great, but if you're getting to 90% of the balls another guy is the fact that your throw across the diamond is incrementally faster isn't all that important. Likewise on errors, the average errors at SS (team stats) was 17, 19 the year before that. The likelihood is that your SS is going to be within 5 or so of that figure. Jeter's error total was typically less than the league average, and that's great. But you're still talking about a difference of at most 15-20 plays a year, whereas range can be the difference in a play or so a game. So you're absolutely right, more to defense than range. But the most important part of SS defense at the major league level, and the greatest difference between an okay defender and a great one, is range.

is not yet as sure handed as Jeter was, marginally. Whatever Jeter reached was as good as an out. Didi has greater range, clearly, but makes a few more errors than Jeter did. Jeter was a super smart fielder as Dune said; positioned himself to make plays and was great going out on flies.
Jeter was/is the better of the two at the plate, but Didi is getting better and I don't think(IMO) has topped out. But I doubt he ever becomes as consistently exceptional as Jeter was.

Jeter is a 1st ballot HOFer and an alltime great, with a knack for the big play at the crucial time. Cannot say Didi is close to that. Jeter seemed to be at that level for almost ever...

had two sub-100 full seasons, one of which was his last. Also averaged just shy of 20 SBs a season. Didi has yet to top 100 for a single season of OPS+, his career high in steals is 7, and his career OBP is barely Jeter's career batting average. He's simply not in Jeter's weight class as a hitter.

In comment 13369375 Dunedin81 said:

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had two sub-100 full seasons, one of which was his last. Also averaged just shy of 20 SBs a season. Didi has yet to top 100 for a single season of OPS+, his career high in steals is 7, and his career OBP is barely Jeter's career batting average. He's simply not in Jeter's weight class as a hitter.

Case closed in that regard. That said, Didi's a good fielder and seems to be improving as a hitter. We have a rare glut of SS prospects ...