Jeter Vs. Rose

During a Derek Jeter at-bat in last night's ESPN telecast of the Yankees game Joe Morgan and Jon Miller got to discussing the shortstop's prodigious hit totals. He has racked up 2242 hits already in his career and is en route to another season with more than 200. That would be three in a row for Jeter and the sixth time he reached that mark in his career. Morgan downplayed the numbers, saying that Jeter still had a long way to go before he reached the level of his old teammate Pete Rose especially since Jeter had never had a long hitting streak to hang his hat on. No one needs us to tell them that Morgan is fuller of shit than the New York sewer system so we'll let Peter Gammons do it first.

Gammons chimed in after Morgan prattled on about Jeter's lack of Roseian credentials to say that, surprise surprise, Morgan was dead wrong. Jeter has 200 more hits than Rose did at the same age, Gammons reported, which puts him on pace to set the all-time hit mark if he should play to the age of 45 as Rose did. That's unlikely for several reasons. First is the disparity in money Jeter's earning compared to Rose and second is the fact that Rose was a bit of a train wreck who didn't have anything other than betting on baseball to fill up his time off the field. Jeter also isn't likely to be named player-manager and start himself at the expense of better players to further his assault on a record. Still, it's an impressive statistic and one that belies any argument that Jeter isn't a worthy pursuer of the Hit King's record.

His claim about Jeter's hitting streaks is also unfounded. Number two is currently on a 12-game tear and had a string of 39 hits in 40 games earlier this season.  It's not the 44 gamer that Rose has on his resume but it's pretty damned good. He also had a 25-game streak last season and has gone more than four games without a hit just once in the last eight-plus seasons. There have been 34 streaks of more than 30 games since the 20th century began and few of the players responsible for them have had careers worth half as much as Jeter's. To cite such an insignificant statistical anomaly as a reason why Jeter's not as great a player as Rose shows Morgan's ignorance of the game. Say that Rose had 10 200-hit seasons, four of which came after he was older than Jeter is now, or say that Jeter has been uncommonly healthy throughout his career and is getting to an age where that's less likely to remain the case. But the lack of a long hitting streak is much less important than the lack of a long hitless streak when you're discussing a player as consistent as Jeter's been throughout his major league career.

Comments

[One More Dying Quail]

Apparently Joe isn't familiar with Jeter's unbelievable streak between 2006 and 2007 in which he had hits in 56 of 58 games (and 72 of 75 or something ridiculous like that). That's DiMaggio territory right there.

[Doug]

Jeter also reached base in 57 straight games in 1998. They weren't all hits but it was a great achievement. Joe Morgan is the worst announcer in baseball and I don't watch ESPN games because of having to listen to that idiot who loves to hear himself talk more than Vin Scully.

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