2011 Fantasy Projections No. 53: Will New York Yankees' Derek Jeter Bounce Back?

Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one by one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings.

After 14 straight seasons of batting .290 or higher, Derek Jeter bottomed out in arguably the worst season of his career in 2010, posting a .270 batting clip. His OBP (.340), slugging percentage (.370) and OPS (.710) were also career lows.

Not coincidentally, Jeter’s .307 BABIP was by far the worst of his career and well below his notoriously high .356 career mark.

Notwithstanding, Jeter still managed to score 111 runs and steal 18 bases, numbers worthy of fantasy consideration no matter what his batting average was.

So what does 2011 have in store for the 36-year-old captain?

It’d be easy to chalk up his career-worst 2010 season to old age, but one thing could explain a big chunk of it: bad luck.

Jeter still makes consistent contact (85.5 percent in 2010, MLB average 80.7 percent), and his strikeout rate (16.0 percent) remains well below the league average of 20.7 percent.

Given that he leads off for the Yankees, he remains a valuable fantasy option. Perhaps we won’t see him hit .330 for the fifth time, but a .290 average with 100 runs and approximately 20 steals keeps Jeter relevant at a very thin shortstop position.

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
2010 stats	739	111	10	67	18	.270
Three-year average	708	102	13	67	20	.301
2011 FBI Forecast	685	100	11	70	17	.292

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