Derek Jeter
Age: 32 Years Old (Turns 33 in June).

Three-Year History, three-year splits and last year's splits.

SEASON Team G AB H 1B 2B 3B HR R RBI BB SO SB CS AVG
2004 Yankees 154 643 188 120 44 1 23 111 78 46 99 23 4 .292
2005 Yankees 159 654 202 153 25 5 19 122 70 77 117 14 5 .309
2006 Yankees 154 623 214 158 39 3 14 118 97 69 102 34 5 .343
2007 Bill James 158 644 203 149 35 2 17 117 81 70 111 24 7 .315
2007 CHONE   593 183 130 34 3 16 110 70 61 98 18 4 .309
2007 Marcel   557 173 123 31 3 16 100 73 56 95 20 4 .311
2007 ZiPS   625 189 137 34 2 16 111 92 66 110 21 4 .302

SEASON Team BB% K% BB/K OBP SLG OPS ISO BABIP
2004 Yankees 6.7 % 15.4 % 0.46 .352 .471 .823 .179 .317
2005 Yankees 10.5 % 17.9 % 0.66 .389 .450 .839 .141 .353
2006 Yankees 10.0 % 16.4 % 0.68 .417 .483 .900 .140 .394
2007 Bill James 9.8 % 17.2 % 0.63 .393 .455 .848 .140 .360
2007 CHONE 9.3 % 16.5 % 0.62 .383 .457 .840 .148 .349
2007 Marcel 9.1 % 17.1 % 0.59 .382 .463 .845 .153 .352
2007 ZiPS 9.6 % 17.6 % 0.60 .378 .440 .818 .138 .347

Outlook:In 2006, Derek had one of the finest seasons in his already impressive career. It was something of an upset that DJ didn't win the 2006 MVP over Justin Morneau (I'm not saying that Jeter was THE MVP...but he was def. more valuable than Morneau). It was a renaissance of sorts as Jeter put up the second highest OPS+ of his career and won the Silver Slugger at SS with the second highest batting average (second in the AL), OBP and SLG in his career. All of this while surpassing 2,000 hits in his age 32 season.

Derek started off last season with a bang with a ridiculous April and after a brief dip in March, remained on fire throughout the rest of the year. Seriously, look through his splits and it's fairly difficult to find instances where Jeter didn't perform. He hit well on the road (great at home) and against righties (he BOMBED lefties - nice little weapon to have to break up a lefty laden line-up, no?). Heck, his worst month was a .292/.360/.372/.732 line that he put up in May while the next lowest OPS was .813 in June.

So what do we have to think about when considering Jeter's contributions for the coming year? Well, for one thing, most scouts note that good hitters eventually learn more patience at the plate age. Seemingly, that seems to be happening as Jeter, who has always been a hacker, has brought his walk rate up to double digits and has now maintained that rate for the two seasons. Along with that seems to have come an even greater tendency to hit grounders. Jeter has always been a groundball hitter but he's really become more so over the last two years. For the moment, he can beat out some of those grounders but in time, that could prove to be a problem. Finally, you've got to start thinking about some regression to the mean. It's certainly expected (it's not often that someone maintains a .394 BABIP for an entire season) but you know - he's the Captain; it never really surprises me what he is capable of.

Please post your predictions for the following stat line in the comments section:

AB R HR RBI SB AVG OBP SLG