For my entire life, Derek Jeter has been synonymous with the New York Yankees. Jeter’s rookie season was the first season I rooted for the team I now call my favorite in any sport (sorry, Hoyas). I don’t know Jeter without the Yankees, I don’t know the Yankees without Jeter, and in a perfect world it would stay like that forever. But unfortunately, that is not the world in which we live. Jeter and the Yankees will eventually separate.
Technically, Jeter is not currently a Yankee. He is a free agent, and has been since the World Series ended. But no one thinks of him in that way—to New Yorkers and Bostonians alike, he is still a Yankee. However, he will officially be part of the team again only when he signs the contract with New York.
This will happen, in time. But Jeter and his agent Casey Close’s initial offer is in a completely different ballpark than what the Yankees want to pay the 36-year-old shortstop. It has been reported that the Yankees’ initial offer was $45 million for three years, while Jeter and Close were looking for $150 million over six years. Jeter’s last deal paid him $189 million over 10 years, making him one of the best-paid players ever to step on the diamond. Marco Scutaro, the shortstop for the rival Red Sox, put up very similar numbers last year and he only earned $5.5 million, less than a quarter of Jeter’s salary—and Jeter wants a raise?
The Yankees are offering him more because he is worth more than his stats—he is a leader, a proven winner, and an integral part of the Yankees’ brand. Fans mention his name in the same sentence as Ruth, Mantle, Gehrig, and DiMaggio. While many think intangibles are overrated, the Yankees obviously see them as important (and Jeter sees them as insanely important). The key question becomes, how much is he actually worth?
The Yankees are the richest team in sports and have never been afraid to spend their money. Sometimes, they are even reckless with their fortune. They threw Carl “American Idle” Pavano $40 million in about two seconds. They gave Javier Vasquez $11.5 million this past season after he failed miserably the last time he wore the pinstripes. So how could a team so rich spend so much time negotiating with the franchise’s most important player in the last 40 years when they have thrown money at overrated players in the past? It’s those intangibles again. There is no way to measure them, which is why both parties are so far apart on the terms of the deal.
When thinking about Jeter deciding to either take the deal or ask for more, two memorable moments flashed in my mind: Lou Gehrig’s famous farewell speech, in which the terminally ill ballplayer said, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”; and Jerry Maguire ranting, “Show me the money!” Jeter and his agent took the Jerry Maguire route—and they were wrong.
He is not a bad person for trying to make as much money as he possibly can—especially when every athlete does it. But Jeter should be less Jerry and more Lou.
Every time Jeter walked out of the clubhouse to the dugout in the old Yankee Stadium, he touched a sign on the wall with a famous quote from Joe DiMaggio on it. “I want to thank the Good Lord for making me a Yankee.” When the stadium was destroyed, Jeter took the sign as a keepsake.
Doesn’t he realize how much the Yankees have given him? He plays for the premier team in baseball in the MLB’s biggest market. He is an icon because of his play, but also because of his championships, which he wouldn’t have if he played for, say, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Yankees provided him the launch pad to soar into the stratosphere. I’m not discounting anything he has ever done in the uniform—his career has been nothing short of masterful—I just think he needs to give the Yankees more credit.
The Yankees’ offer to The Captain isn’t disrespectful, either—they are paying above market value. It is time for Jeter to take what the Yankees are giving him—he was always meant for the pinstripes.
