Remember the golden era of shortstops of the late 90s and early 2000s, when the American League was ruled by Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra and Miguel Tejada? Good times weren’t they?
But then Nomar Garciaparra became an injury magnet, A-Rod moved to third base and Miguel Tejada leveled off. What happened to it all?
Well, in an interesting post over at Baseball Analysts, Patrick Sullivan makes a case that the golden age didn’t end. In fact, it might be at its peak.
He compares the class of 2002 to this year’s class, which includes Hanley Ramirez, Jason Bartlett and Troy Tulowitzki, among others. Jeter and Tejada appear in both groups. The numbers are quite similar, so Sullivan theorizes that markets and media hype are playing a role in the current group’s lack of publicity.
A quick glance at both lists makes it pretty easy to explain why the 2009 group gets so much less publicity. The first group was still considered part of a revolutionary time in baseball, and it didn’t hurt that they were largely either in huge baseball markets or playing for the best teams in the game. A-Rod, Nomar and Jeter were referred to as the Holy Trinity, Tejada came on later but grabbed headlines for the great Oakland A’s teams of the turn of the century. Edgar Renteria played for St. Louis at the time, a great market with a large and attentive fanbase.
So which group do you think is better? And furthermore, which group is better when you consider defense?