Derek Jeter

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
Home List of Articles

Derek Jeter

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter was elected to the Hall of Fame in his 1st year of eligibility, 2020, with 99.7% of the vote.

Five highlights of Derek Jeter's career:

Derek Jeter was named to fourteen All-Star teams, starting nine of them. He received MVP votes twelve times including eight top-10 finishes. He also won the 1996 American League Rookie of the Year award, five Gold Gloves, and five Silver Sluggers.

Jeter batted .300 or better twelve times. He had an on-base percentage of .400 or better four times. Jeter scored 100 or more runs thirteen times (plus 99 runs scored in 2012), leading the league in 1998. He collected 200 or more hits eight times, leading the league twice (in 1999 and 2012).

Jeter ended his career sixth in major-league history in career hits, with 3,465, and eleventh in career runs scored, with 1,923. He is third in American League history in hits (behind Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker) and fifth in American League history in runs scored.

Jeter holds major-league career postseason records for games played (158), plate appearances (734), at bats (650), hits (200), doubles (32), triples (5, tied with two others), total bases (302), and runs scored (111).

Jeter got his 3,000th career hit on July 9, 2011. He was the second player to hit a home run for his 3,000th hit – Wade Boggs was the first. He was also the second player to go 5-for-5 in the game in which he got his 3,000th hit (he ended the game with 3,003 hits) – Craig Biggio was the first. Jeter’s final hit of the game was an RBI single in the top of the ninth to drive in the go-ahead run in a 5-4 Yankees victory (Jeter scored or drove in 3 of the Yankees’ 5 runs in the game).

The first two tables below present Derek Jeter's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1995	NYA	21	15	1.0	1.6	-0.4	-0.5
1996	NYA	22	157	18.2	19.7	1.4	-0.4
1997	NYA	23	159	21.1	20.2	4.1	2.1
1998	NYA	24	149	23.1	16.8	9.3	7.3
1999	NYA	25	158	26.1	18.1	11.2	9.1
2000	NYA	26	148	20.5	16.7	6.4	4.6
2001	NYA	27	150	20.1	17.4	5.5	3.6
2002	NYA	28	157	20.3	17.6	5.5	3.6
2003	NYA	29	119	15.8	12.9	4.9	3.5
2004	NYA	30	154	22.7	18.1	7.6	5.6
2005	NYA	31	159	23.0	20.5	5.6	3.6
2006	NYA	32	154	22.7	17.0	8.4	6.5
2007	NYA	33	156	21.3	18.1	5.9	4.1
2008	NYA	34	150	18.4	17.7	3.3	1.6
2009	NYA	35	153	19.4	16.5	5.6	3.9
2010	NYA	36	157	20.3	20.0	3.3	1.4
2011	NYA	37	131	15.9	15.4	2.8	1.3
2012	NYA	38	159	20.3	19.0	4.2	2.2
2013	NYA	39	17	1.5	1.7	-0.0	-0.2
2014	NYA	40	145	15.9	18.1	0.2	-1.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,747	367.7	323.1	94.8	61.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			158	21.3	18.4	5.8	3.9
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,905	388.9	341.6	100.7	65.1

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1995	NYA	21	15	1.2	1.4	-0.0	-0.2
1996	NYA	22	157	18.5	19.3	2.0	0.2
1997	NYA	23	159	20.5	20.9	2.9	0.9
1998	NYA	24	149	21.9	18.0	7.1	5.1
1999	NYA	25	158	24.6	19.5	8.5	6.3
2000	NYA	26	148	19.5	17.7	4.6	2.8
2001	NYA	27	150	20.0	17.6	5.1	3.2
2002	NYA	28	157	19.6	18.3	4.1	2.2
2003	NYA	29	119	15.1	13.7	3.5	2.1
2004	NYA	30	154	21.1	19.7	4.5	2.5
2005	NYA	31	159	22.9	20.6	5.4	3.3
2006	NYA	32	154	21.4	18.3	5.8	3.9
2007	NYA	33	156	20.3	19.1	3.9	2.1
2008	NYA	34	150	18.1	18.0	2.7	1.0
2009	NYA	35	153	18.9	17.0	4.4	2.7
2010	NYA	36	157	19.7	20.6	2.1	0.2
2011	NYA	37	131	15.5	15.8	2.1	0.5
2012	NYA	38	159	20.2	19.1	3.9	1.9
2013	NYA	39	17	1.4	1.9	-0.2	-0.4
2014	NYA	40	145	15.4	18.7	-1.0	-2.6
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,747	355.6	335.2	71.4	37.8
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			158	20.9	18.8	5.0	3.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,905	376.5	354.0	76.4	40.9

Derek Jeter was, of course, one of the best shortstops in major-league history. Exactly where he ranks highlights an interesting aspect of Derek Jeter's career record.

The next table shows the top 20 shortstops in career Wins over positional average earned only at shortstop for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records. The left-hand side of the table looks at pWins - which tie to team wins and are, therefore, highly context-dependent. The right-hand side looks at expected wins, or eWins.


	Top Shortstops, pWOPA					Top Shortstops, eWOPA
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA		Player	eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Pee Wee Reese	287.2	226.2	68.5	1	Cal Ripken	306.7	278.2	47.3
2	Derek Jeter	361.0	316.9	61.0	2	Arky Vaughan	231.6	192.6	44.3
3	Barry Larkin	287.9	246.6	50.6	3	Alex Rodriguez	179.5	144.4	43.1
4	Cal Ripken	306.9	278.0	47.6	4	Barry Larkin	281.8	252.6	38.8
5	Arky Vaughan	232.1	192.1	45.3	5	Pee Wee Reese	271.8	241.6	38.2
6	Alan Trammell	269.7	244.4	42.6	6	Alan Trammell	266.5	247.6	36.5
7	Vern Stephens	206.8	169.8	41.9	7	Joe Cronin	266.8	238.1	36.2
8	Joe Cronin	269.4	235.4	41.3	8	Ernie Banks	167.2	137.3	35.2
9	Lou Boudreau	219.2	184.4	40.7	9	Derek Jeter	347.4	330.5	34.5
10	Alex Rodriguez	178.0	146.0	40.0	10	Lou Boudreau	215.6	188.0	33.6
11	Ozzie Smith	332.4	310.0	37.0	11	Vern Stephens	202.3	174.3	33.1
12	Dave Concepcion	266.5	249.3	31.2	12	Luke Appling	308.2	286.7	29.4
13	Miguel Tejada	262.5	243.6	30.2	13	Ozzie Smith	326.2	316.2	24.8
14	Dave Bancroft	246.8	226.5	28.8	14	Dave Bancroft	244.1	229.2	23.5
15	Travis Jackson	187.1	164.6	28.4	15	Hanley Ramirez	147.8	128.3	23.1
16	Luke Appling	307.3	287.6	27.6	16	Nomar Garciaparra	147.3	131.5	23.1
17	Nomar Garciaparra	149.6	129.2	27.5	17	Troy Tulowitzki	170.6	152.2	23.0
18	Phil Rizzuto	202.7	180.7	27.3	18	Joe Sewell	177.9	162.2	22.3
19	Ernie Banks	163.1	141.4	27.1	19	Jim Fregosi	187.5	173.5	22.3
20	Roger Peckinpaugh	203.4	185.5	24.8	20	Robin Yount	195.8	188.4	21.5
21	Jimmy Rollins	290.0	273.8	24.4	21	Bert Campaneris	269.6	266.7	21.2

As can be seen fairly starkly in the above table, Derek Jeter's career looks markedly better when his performance is put into a team context via pWins. Just comparing career pWins to career eWins, Derek Jeters's performance translated into 12 more Yankee wins than expected.

The next table shows the players whose career pWins exceed their career eWins by the most.


	Largest Career Gap, pWins minus eWins
	Player	pWins	eWins	Difference
1	Babe Ruth	498.7	481.5	17.3
2	Lefty Grove	264.3	249.6	14.7
3	Pee Wee Reese	299.9	285.5	14.4
4	Yogi Berra	246.3	233.0	13.3
5	Whitey Ford	209.4	197.0	12.3
6	Derek Jeter	367.7	355.6	12.1
7	Joe DiMaggio	287.1	275.2	11.9
8	Jim Palmer	241.5	229.8	11.8
9	Sandy Koufax	156.7	146.3	10.4
10	Lou Gehrig	310.3	300.0	10.3
11	Allie Reynolds	166.2	156.0	10.2
12	Marty Marion	195.2	185.0	10.2
13	Willie Mays	465.3	455.3	10.0
14	Frankie Rodriguez	89.7	79.6	10.0
15	Frankie Frisch	329.0	319.2	9.8
16	Al Simmons	335.9	326.1	9.8
17	Paul O'Neill	261.1	251.7	9.4
18	Lee Smith	110.2	101.0	9.3
19	Denny McLain	122.9	113.7	9.2
20	Nellie Fox	291.6	282.5	9.1

So what does this table mean?

Well, certainly Jeter - and the other players on this list - played their careers with very good teams. And some of the difference here is essentially the good fortune of having good teammates - hits are more valuable when they lead to runs and runs are more valuable when they lead to wins and the extent to which hits lead to runs and runs lead to wins are driven in part by how good one's teammates are at driving one in and at how good the pitchers on one's teams are at holding leads.

It is hard to know the extent to which this was merely dumb luck or whether there was really something special in Derek Jeter’s game that enabled him to better rise to the occasion in key situations than others, including his long-time teammates. But whether by happenstance or by skill, it is unquestionably true that Derek Jeter’s performance led to more wins than might have been expected based purely on his context-neutral statistical record, and that this gap - actual wins minus expected wins - was greater for Jeter than for any other major-league player of the last 50 years.

Article last updated: January 21, 2020

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

Home List of Articles