Submitted by Ian B, Aug 2, 2008 09:19

I love the fact that Steve Goldman is so willing to think out of the box. As a Celtics fan, I remember the hysteria that ensued when the idea of trading McHale, Bird or Parish was raised in the late 1980s. Instead of trading these guys when their value was high, they let them meander downwards until the franchise was irrelevant (some untimely deaths didn't help matters). However, I don't think Goldman has this exactly right. Jeter is still a plus-shortstop and dealing him now probably wouldn't fetch as much as Goldman presupposes here. And the cost would be high, likely another empty spot in a batting order that has been killed by such dead spots all year (see Cabrera, Melky; Molina, Jose). Jeter's numbers are still very solid and there is no reason to think he can't continue to perform for the remaining two years of his contract. Who would have thought he could reinvent his defense at age 34? We are obviously dealing with an unusual specimen here. Moreover, Goldman's lauding of the Boston front office's willingness to take a risk is overstated. In both the Manny and Nomar situations, the player at issue had become a monumental distraction to the rest of the team. There are no reports that Jeter is a similar distraction, and the opposite could be argued. I generally abhor resorting to amorphous concepts like "leadership," but Jeter is a likely example of a player adding up to more than the sum of his statistical parts. But kudos to Goldman anyway for stretching our thinking a bit.

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