Keyshawn Johnson is Burning?

Well let him.

So Keyshawn was doing a little guest host gig today for Jim Rome on that abomination of a show that Rome has. On the bright side, there was no noticeable drop off from the usual. Unfortunately, that's a bad thing.

So Keyshawn or whoever writes for the show referenced a study that found that Derek Jeter is THE worst fielding starting short stop (presumably with a minimum sample size) in the majors. This is sort of something that sabremetricians have been hinting at for a while, so it was quite exciting to hear it mentioned on ESPN. The study evidently goes on to say that the Yankees made a mistake by moving A-Rod to third and keeping Jeter at SS. Again, I totally agree. In all likelihood A-Rod would be a much better fielder if he were playing his natural position, and he would do a better job than Jeter.

Then Keyshawn says that the study is wrong because it fails to account for how "clutch" Jeter is and that Jeter should just laugh it off. Fine, I guess he should laugh it off, because he is making millions of dollars and probably doesn't care. However Keyshawn attempting to say that the study is actually wrong, by citing some voodoo "clutch" argument and Gold Gloves, is downright appalling. First of all, we all know that 99% of why people think Jeter is clutch is because he made that heads up play to flip to Posada in the ALCS years and years ago and nail a sluggish, roided up Giambi. The only sort of honorific that is affected MORE by some small sample size, pretty memories than the Gold Glove, would have to be the moniker "clutch". Neither one of them is an achievement in and of itself, they are both popularity contests that are loosely linked to some isolated achievements and not actual quality of play.