Why the Yankees must do the right thing for Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter is not good enough to play every day for the New York Yankees. Jeter made that obvious this weekend in Milwaukee, as he played a particularly dead brand of baseball. He managed one lone hit in nine plate appearances to lower his batting line to .250/.320/.310. Worse, this clearly is not a major league shortstop. 

Jeter is struggling to range and struggling to throw. The defensive spray charts at FanGraphs paint a clear picture of Jeter's defensive performance thus far.

Jeter, who has always struggled on balls hit to his left, is leaving the Yankees with a huge hole between the shortstop position and the second base bag. He's not getting any of those runs back with his bat. Now the Yankees have to start asking themselves how long they can afford to keep Jeter in the lineup on a regular basis.

Of course, we (and the Yankees) can't be surprised after Jeter hit just .190/.288/.254 in 17 games last season. The broken ankle Jeter suffered in the 2012 playoffs was vicious, and plenty of players much closer to their primes (Rickie Weeks and Ike Davis spring to mind) have seen promising careers crash to earth following similar injuries. 

It is apparent Jeter will not have the clean goodbye Mariano Rivera (2.11 ERA and 44 saves in 64 innings) had last year. Rivera's performance fit perfectly into the crafted narrative of the hero riding out into the sunset, the ageless wonder who is stepping down not because he's lost a step or a tick on the fastball, but because it's just his time.

Jeter, a man who has always served as the perfect vessel for whatever hagiography the New York and national media wanted to bestow upon him, finally doesn't fit. Sure, he has been losing steps gradually for a few years now, and his defense has always been a point of ridicule. But whenever he was down -- say, after hitting .270/.340/.370 in 2010 -- he responded with a resurgence. There was never, outside of a few trolls, any doubt that his presence helped the Yankees

It will be tempting for the Yankees to keep forcing this story. Ballparks outside of New York are selling out in preparation of Jeter's last trip to town. It will be a difficult burden for Joe Girardi, Jeter's teammate for four years in New York before becoming manager, to send the Captain to the bench. And there will be plenty, both fans and media, who decry such a move as lacking respect for all Jeter has given them over his two decades as a Yankee.

And perhaps that's fair. We obsess over sports not for the wins and losses alone but their stories, and Yankees fans understandably want to remember Jeter as Mr. November, the perfect 21st-century Yankee, and not the statue currently planted between second and third base. 

Benching Jeter wouldn't fit the script. But these stories don't work when they're forced. The Yankees could leave Jeter out there and hope the ride into the sunset happens. But more likely, Jeter continues to scuffle, particularly against right-handed pitching. More likely, the range he lost to the ankle injury doesn't come back. And more likely, Jeter's last season is tainted as his poor performance becomes a bigger and bigger factor of why the Yankees aren't in first place.

This weekend, The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo wrote that the Yankees may be back in on Stephen Drew, assuming he remains available until after the draft and signing him would no longer bestow the Red Sox with a first round pick. The move is obvious at this point. Brendan Ryan can field, but his healthy bat may still be weaker than Jeter's. And hitting against left-hander has been the only area of Jeter's game to hold up: he's hitting .313/.411/.375 against lefties. Jeter has hit under .300 against lefties just once in his career (1998, .282) and screams platoon partner for the left-handed hitting Drew, who owns a .681 OPS against lefties compared to .795 against righties.

Really, it could be the perfect final chapter in the Jeterian legacy. Sapped of the youthful energy that powered much of his career, Jeter steps back into a platoon role with Drew and the pair powers them to the playoffs. Jeter gets a few clutch pinch hits against lefties in the postseason and maybe even finds a Raul Ibanez moment. The great mythology of Derek Jeter has always been one of the consummate team player, after all, and what makes more of a team player than stepping out of the spotlight when your time is up?

Forcing a storybook ending for Derek Jeter isn't going to work. His play and his lost athleticism make that apparent. But forced stories are never what make sports worth watching anyway. If the Yankees let Jeter play to his strengths, they can at least give him a chance to write an ending to his career that doesn't leave a sour taste in everybody's mouth.