What makes derek jeter so good

He got what he "always wanted, and part of the reason why is because I had a plan for getting here. Jeter says to be successful, you must always set your goals high even the dream seems out of reach at the moment. Whether your goal is to play for the Yankees or to win the pie-eating contest at summer camp, goals are what motivate us to do better. My ultimate dream was to play major-league baseball, but I had smaller goals along the way," Jeter writes.

For instance, Jeter set the goal of making the Little League All-Star team, and then starting on the high school varsity team as a freshman, making all-district and so on. His first week, he failed to get a hit in his first 14 at bats. He questioned his decision to sign with the pros instead of attending the University of Michigan on a baseball scholarship, according to his book. But as much as struggled with the adjustment, he knew he had to push forward if he wanted to one day be a Yankee.

There will definitely be times when pursuing your goals won't be easy, either For example, during Jeter's second season with the Yankees, Luis Sojo, a former player for the Seattle Mariners, taught him a better way to turn double plays, Jeter writes.

Sojo taught him to stay behind the base, which safer place for an infielder, instead of jumping over the approaching runner, which Jeter liked to do. Jeter says there are role models are everywhere and its important to seek them out and ask questions. They don't even need to be super successful — each one should just have something about them that you admire and can learn from. Jeter says his parents were "always lecturing him about helping people," and that giving back is essential in anyone's pursuit of success.

His mom taught him that, "if you have a little, you give a little back. Essentially the nastiest piece of work to hit the major leagues in the last 50 years, Belle was loathed by road fans and home fans alike. In , when he had one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time for one of the greatest teams of all time, he was passed over for the AL MVP in favor of the clearly inadequate Mo Vaughn.

When Belle became Hall of Fame eligible, he didn't get a sniff. Because he was truly a horse's ass. He hated his coaches, his teammates, the fans, and of course the media.

One of the most talented players in the game during the s, he'd just as soon hit a guy as talk to him. Derek Jeter is one of the most polarizing players in Major League Baseball, and has been for the last 15 years. He is both, but he is also neither. And that's the whole problem: the nationwide war of attrition over Derek Jeter actually has little to do with Jeter's actions—either on or off the field—and everything to do with his supporters and his detractors.

Jeter supporters have created a Cult of Jeter Personality whereby the right and just Jeter is, at once, one of the greatest hitters of all time but also one of the greatest shortstops of all time, to say nothing of being the greatest clutch hitter of all time. The Great Jeter will one day surpass Pete Rose as the All-Time Hits Leader, or so we're told, at which point he will become the greatest player in the history of baseball.

Jeter was very good hitter for a tremendously long career but was never a dominant force offensively. He never won a batting title, never hit 25 home runs, only drove in runs once, and is not among the 15 shortstops who have won the MVP award. While Jeter may have made some flashy plays with the glove, defensive metrics overwhelmingly suggest that the Gold Gloves he was awarded were undeserved.

While Jeter never made a ton of errors, he simply did not have the range of his fellow shortstops. Jeter was among the best in history with the bat — but in the field, he was at best below average. In his first 10 season in the league, Alex Rodriguez blasted home runs, collected more than 1, hits, won two gold gloves, and finished in the top 3 in MVP voting four times, winning the award in Had A-Rod stayed at the position, there would be no conversation about who was the greatest shortstop in baseball history.

But in , Rodriguez was traded to the New York Yankees and moved over to third base to allow Jeter to stay at his position. Even so, A-Rod played more career games at short than he did at the hot corner. When stacking Jeter up against the all-time greats, Rodriguez must be in the conversation, and with career home runs and three MVP awards, he is on a different level than his longtime teammate. The Bottom Line: Hall of Famer Derek Jeter is among a number of shortstops considered to be the best to ever play the position.

Would he be as successful or revered as Rodriguez and Pujols are? Not likely. Derek Jeter is and was a great player. Derek Jeter is, simply put, slightly better than Ryne Sandberg, which is not a bad thing. A very good, even great, player who winds up in Cooperstown one day. Enjoy our content?

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