Great baseball/stats article

I know (most of) y'all don't share my fascination with the grand sport of baseball or the field of statistics, but I have to mention this terrific article on sabermetrics (basically the statistical analysis of sports, most frequently baseball) over at Slate.

It gives general kudos to the stat-heads who analyze baseball in general, but the focus seems to be pointing out the mystery that is Derek Jeter's reputation as a good (maybe even great) defensive shortstop. This is something we stats guys have never been able to fathom. Jeter is better than most (historically) shortstops with the bat, but his defense is awful! And this is not a recent phenomenon. He's never been a great defensive shortstop -- despite winning 3 Gold Glove awards. Everyone remembers his spectacular plays and his spinning, leaping throws, but as sabermetrician Michael Humphries put it, "Basically, he's OK at easy plays and terrible on all others."

There's a lot of good stuff in the article (including a dig at the infamously stat-unfriendly Joe Morgan), but I seem to have lost my train of thought. It's a short article and it points to a lot of the things sabermetrics does well. If you're interested, click through and check it out.