The Worst by Position - Shortstop

That damn Jeter.

See, I was going to do something clever for shortstop. I was going to say that the team with the worst shortstop position in baseball is New York. You were going to say, "Which New York team?" And I was going to say, "It doesn't mater." Because it didn't. Both New York teams were terrible at shortstop.

And then Jeter got back. Here's what he's done, as I write this Wednesday evening:

• He accounts for 2.2% of Yankee shortstop plate appearances.
• He accounts for 2.5% of Yankee shortstop hits.
• He accounts for 4.4% of Yankee shortstop total bases
• He accounts for 5.3% of Yankee shortstop runs.
• He accounts for 33.3% of Yankee shortstop home runs.
• He accounts for 0.0% of the 96 Yankee shortstop strikeouts.

The dude's a one-man reclamation project.

I can't say something cute, so I'll have to actually think about this.

Shortstop's tough. It's the most important defensive position, outside of catcher. So while the Mariners shortstops haven't hit--team batting average .199--their primary guy, Brendan Ryan, is a wizard with the glove. The Royals shortstops don't hit either, but Alcides Escobar can pick 'em. Same with the Pirates and Clint Barmes.

How about fielding? The Astros have the most errors. The Angels do the worst in the advanced fielding metrics, the Yankees the second worst. 

I'm going to go with half my original pick: The Mets. Met shortstops haven't made a lot of errors, but they are average-to-bad by the advanced fielding methods. They're punchless with the bat: 29th in batting (.214), 27th in slugging (.281), only two homers, 26th in runs, 27th in RBI. The only thing they do well is draw walks: their 41 is third in baseball. That lifts their on-base percentage all the way up to .289, good for 21st in baseball. But that's not enough.

If Jeter gets hurt again, though, I am so changing to the Yankees.