Derek Jeter, retiring at season's end, is Box-Toppers' 2nd-ranked all-time shortstop

One in a series

Box-Toppers’ Stick-A-Fork-In-Them series looks at 14 players whose careers are done or may be done. Included is a look at how they have fared in Box-Toppers points over their careers, reflecting their impact on the game over time. This is the sixth of the series:

6. Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter said this week he will retire at the end of the 2014 season, ending a 20-year career at the age of 40.

Jeter, who has 76.4 career Box-Toppers points, ranks second among all shortstops (Box-Toppers record keeping began when he made his Major League debut in 1995), 60th among all batters and 121st among all players. He finished among the top 10 American League batters only once (1998) and finished as high as second place in AL Most Valuable Player award voting once (2006). 

Derek Jeter

Here are Derek Jeter's Box-Toppers statistics. The third column shows his Box-Toppers points (BTP) per season. The final column shows his All-Star Selections, his Box-Toppers key season rankings and his standing in key postseason awards voting.

Year	Team	BTP	Notes
1995	nyy al	0.0
1996	nyy al	4.5	RoY-1
1997	nyy al	2.0	MVP-24
1998	nyy al	10.0	AS, BTP-51, BTP-AL bat-9, MVP-3
1999	nyy al	2.0	AS, BTP-409, MVP-3
2000	nyy al	2.5	AS, BTP-400, MVP-6
2001	nyy al	5.0	AS, BTP-200, MVP-10
2002	nyy al	5.0	AS
2003	nyy al	2.5	MVP-21
2004	nyy al	8.7	AS, BTP-68, BTP-AL bat-16, MVP-3
2005	nyy al	4.0	BTP-238, MVP-10
2006	nyy al	6.7	AS, BTP-135, MVP-2
2007	nyy al	7.0	AS, BTP-112, BTP-AL bat-29, MVP-11
2008	nyy al	3.0	AS
2009	nyy al	1.0	AS, BTP-571, MVP-3
2010	nyy al	5.0	AS
2011	nyy al	4.5	AS
2012	nyy al	3.0	AS, BTP-319, MVP-7
2013	nyy al	0.0
Total		76.4	BTP-121, BTP-bat-60

AS All-star selection
BTP Finish among all players in Box-Toppers points
BTP-AL bat Finish among all AL batters in BTP
MVP Finish in league Most Valuable Player Award voting
RoY Rookie of the Year

Source: Information for player awards comes from Baseball-Reference.com

Jeter, of course, has spent his entire career with the New York Yankees—so far. (This season has yet to play out, so there’s always the chance Jeter will be dealt to the Astros—or the Red Sox … OK, probably not.)

Miguel Tejada is the only shortstop with more career Box-Toppers points than Jeter. Tejada, currently a free agent who has played primarily for the Athletics and the Orioles, has 102.3 points. Jeter is just ahead of the third-place shortstop on the “all-time” list—Nomar Garciaparra has 74.9 Box-Toppers points.

Jeter’s Box-Toppers point totals seem a little low given his longevity, his profile and his accomplishments—five-time World Series champion, 2000 World Series MVP, 1996 AL Rookie of the Year, membership in the 3,000-hit club (he has 3,316 at present) and Yankees team captain since 2003. Plus, his seasonal point totals are lower than expected given his general Jeterian-ness—he has only one season with 10.0 Box-Toppers points.

Why doesn’t he have more Box-Toppers points? A couple of reasons: Box-Toppers tends to favor players with fat batting lines—lots of hits, runs and runs batted in. No doubt, Jeter has a lot of hits, but because he has hit early in the line-up and because he doesn't necessarily hit for power, he does not rack up RBIs as quickly as some. (For example, Jeter has 1,261 career RBIs over 19 seasons. Just behind him on the all-time RBI list is Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, who has nearly as many RBIs as Jeter in just over half the time—1,260 RBIs over 11 seasons.)

Plus, Box-Toppers awards only one player for each game—the one who most contributes to his team’s win. Jeter has had a lot of competition for Player of the Game in a Yankees’ lineup stocked with All-Stars. He played on a team that had a lot of power hitters—Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams, for example. Those players were more likely to drive in runs, which drove the Box-Toppers formula to give them Player of the Game honors more often and thus, earn more Box-Toppers points. 

He also competed for points against some of the all-time great pitchers on his team—Roger Clemens, CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera. With so much talent around him, competition for Box-Toppers points (though they probably had no idea they were competing for Box-Toppers points!) was fierce.

Shortstops also generally don't receive as many Box-Toppers points because they are hired mainly for their fielding—which Box-Toppers ignores—and not for their bat. That all supposedly changed in the 1980s when Cal Ripken Jr. of the Orioles brought power hitting to the shortstop position (Box-Toppers tracking didn't begin until the end of Ripken's career, but he did record 26.9 Box-Toppers points from 1995 to 2001.) In the 1990s, three phenom players ran with Ripken's shortstops-that-can-really-hit model—Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, then of the Red Sox and Alex Rodriguez, then of the Mariners.

Garciaparra, as previously mentioned, accumulated 74.9 Box-Toppers points from 1996 to 2009 (though late in his career, he played first and third base). Rodriguez played shortstop for his first eight seasons with the Mariners and the Rangers, racking up 87.5 Box-Toppers points over that time, which is more than the 76.4 Jeter has over 19 seasons. Rodriguez switched to third base in deference to Jeter when he signed with the Yankees in 2004 and has accumulated 91.8 more Box-Toppers points over those 10 seasons, giving him 179.3 for his career. But the most successful shortstop of the Box-Toppers era (since 1995) is none of those three, but Miguel Tejada, with 102.3 points (a few of the points earned while playing third base and designated hitter).

On Box-Toppers all-time batting ranks, Jeter ranks 60th, just behind these five players—John Olerud (77.8), Shawn Green (77.6), Edgar Martinez (77.5), Mark McGwire (77.3) and Travis Hafner (76.9). He is just ahead of these five players—Pat Burrell (76.0), Jermaine Dye (76.0), Vernon Wells (75.8), Luis Gonzalez (75.3) and Garciaparra (74.9).

Jeter scored at least one Box-Toppers point in 17 straight seasons, from 1996 until 2012. He did not score any points in his injury-shortened 2013 season, ending the streak. Some other career highlights for Jeter:

• In 1998, he had 10.0 Box-Toppers points, the most he had in any season. He finished ninth among all AL batters and 51st among all players in Box-Toppers points, both rankings were his highest for a season. He finished third in AL MVP voting. (The winner, Juan Gonzalez of the Rangers, had 16.3 Box-Toppers points, second among AL batters to Albert Belle of the White Sox with 16.4.)

• In 1999, he had only 2.0 Box-Toppers points, but finished third in AL MVP voting.

• In 2004, he had 8.7 Box-Toppers points and was again third in AL MVP voting. (Vladimir Guerrero of the Angels was voted MVP. He had 14.4 Box-Toppers points, fifth among all AL players.)

• In 2006, he had 6.7 Box-Toppers points and was second in AL MVP voting, his highest finish. (Justin Morneau of the Twins was voted MVP—he had 12.2 Box-Toppers points, seventh among all AL batters.)

• In 2007, he had 7.0 Box-Toppers points and was 11th in AL MVP voting.

• In 2009, he had only 1.0 Box-Toppers point and was ranked 571st among all players in Box-Toppers season rankings. Yet, he still finished third in AL MVP voting.

Jeter’s Box-Toppers numbers often don’t correlate well with baseball writers voting for MVP, especially in years like 2009, when Jeter had but 1.0 Box-Toppers point, yet finished third in MVP voting. Again, Jeter’s point totals may have been kept low because he has not been a power hitter and has competed with an all-star Yankee line-up for points. But Jeter’s play was often spectacular, flipping impossible relays, diving into stands for a foul ball, hitting dramatic World Series-game winning homers. It’s hard to ignore that, but unless it shows up in a box score batting line during a regular season game, Box-Toppers does, indeed, ignore it. Plus, Jeter had the squishy intangibles working in his favor—he was a clubhouse leader, a heckuva guy writers liked and fans admired. Box-Toppers really doesn’t pay attention to that either. It also doesn’t hurt that Jeter is playing in New York and able to attract a lot of attention. But Box-Toppers doesn’t award bonus points for performing well in the media hub of the world.

Box-Toppers is another metric through which players can be compared. Jeter has done well in Box-Toppers points, not so much as a dominant player season-by-season, but more for his long-term legacy and for what he has accomplished over a two-decade career.

Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. Players earn Box-Toppers points for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.

Coming next in the series: Mariano Rivera

Previously in the series: Alex Rodriguez, Roy Halladay, Manny Ramirez, Johan Santana, Jim Thome

A look at Box-Toppers 'all-time' top 100 players

In the midst of the long All-Star break, here is a look at the top 100 players since Box-Toppers record-keeping began in 1995: 

Randy Johnson has always been Box-Toppers' most dominant player. 

Until he retired in 2009, he was consistently earning Box-Toppers Player of the Day honors by being the player who most helped his team to wins by pitching a lot of innings and striking out a lot of batters. 

And even in retirement, Johnson with 278.8 Box-Toppers points, continues to dominate the "all-time" Box-Toppers list, with only one distant challenger, starting pitcher Pedro Martinez (also retired) with 244.8 points.

All other players are at least 84.7 Box-Toppers points behind Johnson (pitcher Curt Schilling, in third place, has 194.1 points). Earning 84.7 points for any single player would be a major career achievement, worthy of landing them on the "all-time" top 100 Box-Toppers list. (We put "all-time" in quotes, since we're not covering all of baseball history, but only the time since 1995 when Box-Toppers stats have been tracked.)

In the top 100 "all-time" chart, you'll see that 95 of the top 100 players have 84.7 or more career Box-Toppers points. If the player ranked in 19th place all time, Andy Pettitte, doubled his already impressive career Box-Toppers points total of 137.5, he still would not have enough points to catch Johnson. 

So what we're saying here is this: Randy Johnson—good. Very good. 

Alex Rodriguez is the batter with the highest Box-Toppers total on the "all-time" list with 176.3 points, fourth place overall. He is also the current leader among active players.

Rodriguez's Yankees teammate, C.C. Sabathia recently took over as the leader among active pitchers—he has 172.3 points (fifth place overall) and this season passed Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay with 170.7 points. Sabathia is also not far behind Rodriguez and could take the outright lead among all active players on the "all-time" list this season.

There are five active players in the "all-time" top 10 list, but not all of them can be considered extremely active. Rodriguez has been out all season and is preparing to come back from injury (and is under a cloud of suspicion that may get him suspended under baseball's performance enhancing drug policy). Halladay is out, perhaps for the season, rehabbing from shoulder surgery. Manny Ramirez (167.2 points, seventh place) is attempting a comeback and is in the minor leagues with the Texas Rangers. And Johan Santana (166.6 points, eighth place) is out for the season with injury and may be unable to return to pitch. 

Albert Pujols is two or three Player of the Game honors away from joining the top 10. He is in 11th place with 158.3 points, behind John Smoltz with 160.9 points. However, Pujols has only 2.5 Box-Toppers points this season at the All-Star break—if he doubles his season total, he won't reach Smoltz. 

There are 48 active players on the top 100 list (that number includes players such as Ramirez, who are in the minor leagues, or Halladay, on the disabled list). All other players are either listed as "free agents," (who either hope to come back to baseball or haven't said they are retired) are playing outside the Major Leagues (in Japan or an independent league) or have retired. Recent retirees (such as Derek Lowe, who told a reporter Thursday he is retired) are listed as "retired" in their team status in the top 100 list. Players with a blank team status retired in 2012 or earlier.

There are 16 players in the top 100 "all-time" list who are also in the top 100 list for 2013. They are all listed in the chart at the bottom of this post. They include:

• Miguel Cabrera, 3B, Tigers: 37th in all-time list with 112.2 points, 3rd in 2013 list with 13.4 points.
• Clayton Kershaw, PI, Dodgers, 73rd in all-time list with 93.1 points, 5th in 2013 list with 12.7. 
• Sabathia, PI, Yankees, 5th in the all-time list with 172.3 points, 94th in 2013 list with 4.7.

Pitchers narrowly outnumber batters in the "all-time" top 100 list. There are 53 pitchers vs. 47 batters on the list. However, in the top 100 list for 2013, pitchers far outnumbered batters—74 to 26. Why? It could be because pitchers burst onto the scene and tend to be very productive for a shorter period of time, while batters, while scoring relatively less in the short term, keep that level of production over a longer time and tend to catch up to pitchers' higher point totals. That's just a theory. But here is the breakdown of players on the "all-time" list by their primary position: 

• Starting pitchers: 49
• Outfielders: 17
• Designated hitters: 12
• Third basemen: 9
• First basemen: 7
• Closing pitchers: 4
• Second basemen: 1 (Jeff Kent)
• Catchers: 1 (Mike Piazza)
• Shortstops: 0

Keep in mind that these are only statistics since 1995. For many players who debuted before then (such as Johnson, Martinez, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux), their career Box-Toppers totals would likely be far higher if the years before 1995 were accounted for. On the other hand, for a player like Chipper Jones (ranked 15th), Box-Toppers covers virtually his entire career—he only played in eight games before 1995, so Box-Toppers covers 2,491 games of his 2,499-game career. 

If you note how the names are listed in the chart—some all lowercase, some properly capitalized, some with numbers after them—you might cringe at the inconsistencies if you were a copy editor. But there is an unintentional method to this madness. In early days of keeping the Box-Toppers database from 1995 to 1997, names were inputted quickly, often with no capitalization—Box-Toppers' e.e. cummings phase, if you will. In about 1997, names were pretty consistently properly capitalized. And in 1998, numbers were added at the ends of names to denote their order of first appearance in the Box-Toppers database (the first time they earned Player of the Game).

So today, when you see player names like "rivera, mariano," (now ranked 26th) you'll know that Rivera first appeared early in Box-Toppers history (in his case, the first year, 1995). "Ortiz, David," (properly capitalized) made his Box-Toppers debut in 1997 (now ranked 27th). And "Helton, Todd 1060," was one of the first players with the debut order number appended, when he first appeared in 1998 (now ranked 32nd).

While many notable players from the past 20 years appear on the top 100 list, others did not earn enough Box-Toppers points to make the cut. A couple of notables: 

• Mark McGwire had 77.3 points, in 112th place.
• Derek Jeter has 76.4 points, in 118th place. 

Box-Toppers points reward players who most help their team win the most games. Top players from the winning team of each game are determined by a formula using standard box score statistics. These top players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being Player of the Game. Among each day's top players, bonus points are awarded for the top players and batters of the day in each league. Players accumulate points through the season to provide a data point for comparison, such as determining which players are most worthy as All-Stars or for postseason awards. 

What are those numbers after players' names?

How does Box-Toppers scoring work? 

Top 100 players since 1995

RANK	PLAYER	POS	TEAM	BTP (All-time)	BTP 2013
1	Johnson, randy	pi sp		278.8
2	Martinez, Pedro J.	pi sp		244.8
3	schilling, curt	pi sp		194.1
4	Rodriguez, Alex	3b dh	nyy al	176.3
5	Sabathia, C.C. 1492	pi sp	nyy al	172.3	4.7
6	Halladay, Roy 1178	pi sp	phi nl	170.7	1.0
7	Ramirez, manny	lf dh	tex al	167.2
8	Santana, Johan 1448	pi sp	nym nl	166.6
9	clemens, roger	pi sp		164.8
10	smoltz, john	pi sp		160.9
11	Pujols, Albert 1438	dh 1b	ana al	158.3	2.5
12	mussina, Mike	pi sp		155.6
13	bonds, barry	lf		153.2
14	maddux, greg	pi sp		151.7
15	jones, chipper	3b	retired	149.0
16	Vazquez, Javier 1146	pi sp		148.3
17	thome, jim	dh	free agent	146.7
18	Hudson, Tim 1231	pi sp	atl nl	143.3	5.7
19	pettitte, andy	pi sp	nyy al	137.5	3.0
20	giambi, jason	dh	cle al	131.4	1.5
21	hoffman, trevor	pi cp		129.4
22	Guerrero, Vladimir	dh	indy league	128.3
23	Oswalt, Roy 1469	pi sp	col nl	127.2
24	Peavy, Jake 1635	pi sp	chi al	124.1	6.0
25	sheffield, gary	lf		124.1
26	rivera, mariano	pi cp	nyy al	122.4	1.0
27	Ortiz, David	dh	bos al	122.2	8.2
28	Hernandez, Felix 2064	pi sp	sea al	118.1	10.4
29	Delgado, Carlos	1b		117.7
30	Zito, Barry 1415	pi sp	sf nl	117.4	3.0
31	Colon, Bartolo	pi sp	oak al	116.3	6.7
32	Helton, Todd 1060	1b	col nl	114.9
33	Carpenter, Chris	pi sp	stl nl	113.3
34	sosa, sammy	rf		113.2
35	Lee, Cliff 1798	pi sp	phi nl	113.1	9.4
36	brown, kevin j.	pi sp		112.8
37	Cabrera, Miguel 1776	3b	det al	112.2	13.4
38	Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	det al	112.2	8.0
39	glavine, tom	pi sp		110.6
40	kent, jeff	2b		109.7
41	Wagner, Billy	pi cp		108.7
42	Millwood, Kevin	pi sp	retired	108.3
43	Berkman, Lance 1261	dh rf	tex al	108.1	1.0
44	Beckett, Josh 1544	pi sp	lad nl	107.2
45	Burnett, A.J. 1300	pi sp	pit nl	107.1	3.7
46	thomas, frank	dh		106.2
47	moyer, jamie	pi sp		104.0
48	Weaver, Jered 2178	pi sp	ana al	103.0	4.0
49	Tejada, Miguel	3b ss	kc al	102.3
50	griffey, ken jr.	cf		102.2
51	wakefield, tim	pi sp		101.4
52	schmidt, jason	pi sp		101.2
53	Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	lad nl	100.5	10.7
54	bagwell, jeff	1b		100.4
55	walker, larry	rf		100.1
56	Konerko, Paul 1107	dh 1b	chi al	99.7	1.0
57	Hunter, Torii 1190	rf	det al	99.4	1.0
58	edmonds, jim	cf rf ph		98.8
59	Buehrle, Mark 1407	pi sp	tor al	98.3	3.7
60	Rolen, Scott	3b	free agent	97.6
61	Jones, Andruw	dh lf ph	japan	96.5
62	Wolf, Randy 1235	pi sp	free agent	96.4
63	Lincecum, Tim 2288	pi sp	sf nl	95.9	5.7
64	piazza, mike	ca		95.7
65	Abreu, Bobby	dh	free agent	95.5
66	nomo, hideo	pi sp		95.5
67	Ordonez, Magglio	rf		94.5
68	Dempster, Ryan 1109	pi sp	bos al	94.2	3.0
69	williams, bernie	rf		93.8
70	Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	phi nl	93.7	5.7
71	Beltran, Carlos 1194	rf	stl nl	93.4	1.5
72	Lilly, Ted 1452	pi sp	lad nl	93.3
73	Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	93.1	12.7
74	giles, brian	rf		92.5
75	Wood, Kerry	pi sp cp		92.4
76	Ramirez, Aramis 1364	3b	mil nl	92.3
77	Cain, Matt 2081	pi sp	sf nl	92.0	4.0
78	Glaus, Troy 1132	3b		91.6
79	Haren, Danny 1787	pi sp	dc nl	91.5	1.7
80	Lowe, Derek	pi sp	retired	91.5	1.0
81	Dunn, Adam 1512	dh 1b	chi al	90.8	4.2
82	Ibanez, Raul 1137	lf dh	sea al	89.7	2.0
83	Teixeira, Mark 1738	1b	nyy al	87.8	1.5
84	alou, moises	lf		87.5
85	belle, albert	rf		87.5
86	wells, david	pi sp		87.5
87	castilla, vinny	3b		86.9
88	Beltre, Adrian 1141	3b	tex al	86.6	5.7
89	anderson, garret	dh lf		86.5
90	leiter, al	pi sp		86.2
91	Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	bos al	85.7	5.7
92	Lee, Carlos 1246	lf	retired	85.5
93	Lackey, John 1640	pi sp	bos al	85.4	4.0
94	Zambrano, Carlos 1676	pi sp	phi nl	85.2
95	radke, brad	pi sp		85.0
96	Howard, Ryan 2040	1b	phi nl	84.0	3.5
97	Martinez, Tino	1b		81.4
98	Lee, Derrek	1b	free agent	81.3
99	percival, troy	pi cp		80.7
100	Holliday, Matt 1836	lf	stl nl	80.3	4.0

BTP (All-time): Box-Toppers points accumulated since 1995, when this stat-keeping method began. 

BTP 2013: Box-Toppers points for the 2013 season. 

Note: The team column shows a player's current team status. Active players are listed on either their current MLB team or where they are currently playing (i.e. Japan or an independent league). Other players are listed as "free agent" or "retired." Players who have retired in 2012 or before are listed with no team affiliation. 

Overlapping players

Players on both the Top 100 list since 1995 and Top 100 of 2013

PLAYER	POS	TEAM	BTP (All-time)	RANK (All-time)	BTP (2013)	RANK (2013)
Cabrera, Miguel 1776	3b	det al	112.2	37	13.4	3
Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	93.1	73	12.7	5
Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	lad nl	100.5	53	10.7	12
Hernandez, Felix 2064	pi sp	sea al	118.1	28	10.4	13
Lee, Cliff 1798	pi sp	phi nl	113.1	35	9.4	22
Ortiz, David	dh	bos al	122.2	27	8.2	25
Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	det al	112.2	38	8.0	26
Colon, Bartolo	pi sp	oak al	116.3	31	6.7	40
Peavy, Jake 1635	pi sp	chi al	124.1	24	6.0	53
Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	phi nl	93.7	70	5.7	64
Beltre, Adrian 1141	3b	tex al	86.6	88	5.7	65
Lincecum, Tim 2288	pi sp	sf nl	95.9	63	5.7	66
Hudson, Tim 1231	pi sp	atl nl	143.3	18	5.7	68
Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	bos al	85.7	91	5.7	70
Sabathia, C.C. 1492	pi sp	nyy al	172.3	5	4.7	94

BTP: Box-Toppers points