NY Yankee Derek Jeter: Price Tag For Postseason Greatness Too High?

While I surfed the Internet checking my various e-mails, I stumbled across an advertisement featuring Yankees shortstop, Derek Jeter. The ad alluded to Jeter being the greatest most overrated shortstop. The ad had a caption below saying how Jeter's greatness doesn't warrant him his paycheck and how he is essentially overpaid.

As I sat and absorbed this, I actually began to see what the advertisement meant. I equated Jeter's 18.9 million dollar paycheck to what he does for the team, I also assessed the time he received his contract. Now, looking at these numbers and Jeter's statistics over the past seven years, I have come to the realization that the ad might be right.

Those of us who watch Yankees baseball and those who just know Derek Jeter as an iconic sports figure know one thing: Derek Jeter is one of the most clutch players in all of sports.

Now here's the all important question: is being clutch enough to earn nearly 19 million dollars per season? Well, the numbers tell us otherwise, if you take away all of his postseason appearances and look at his season numbers, Derek Jeter is a very average player. For his career, he's batted .317, averaged 17 home runs per season, 82 RBI's, 122 runs, 67 walks, and 114 strikeouts, to go along with 208 hits. That is his entire 13-season career in a nutshell.

Now, those numbers are pretty good, but let's take a look at his numbers since he received, at the time, the largest contract ever given by the Yankees organization in 2001. 

Since 2001 Derek Jeter has averaged a .300 batting average, 16 homers, 74 RBI's, 110 runs, 60 walks, 102 strikeouts, and 192 hits. Now that just doesn't say "earning my paycheck" to me. 

Most of Jeter's glory comes in the clutch moments of games and since 2001 the Yankees haven't had many memorable "clutch moments" for him to shine. So if he's being paid to be Mr. Clutch, well then frankly, he shouldn't be getting paid.

That brings up another question: Would Derek Jeter be the same player if he never won a World Series? Would he be the iconic figure in the Gatorade commercials if he played for the Kansas City Royals? More importantly to the fan, who pays an average $25 per ticket, would he be paid his 18.9 million dollar contract? 

Well hypotheticals aside, being clutch means nothing if you can't make it to the postseason, so to impress this fan, Captain Jeter had better start putting up some better season numbers and live up to his 19 million dollar per season, not postseason, salary.