Then again, a lot of my grousing comes from being in L.A. and listening to the Angels radio broadcaster rejoice over their victory. Man, he is awful.

What are the signs of a good leader? What are the signs that the Tigers lack a good leader? How do you differentiate between good and bad leadership and good and bad luck? How do you differentiate between good and bad leadership and good and bad players around the leader?

Similarly, I can’t discount that ARod is seems to be a moron or that he has failed to produce when the chips were down. I can’t forget about that contract he signed with Texas and how he lobbied to be traded after things didn’t work out all gravy. I can’t forget about all the dumb stuff he says to the press or his crying about the fans in NYC.

But ARod has unbelievable numbers and when all of the people who saw them both play are dead, and there’s nobody to bring up Jeter’s intangibles, ARod will likely be remembered as the greatest player of his generation.

But I think he is the most-written-about player of his generation, and many of the opinion pieces about Jeter focus on what he can do that someone like A-Rod, who I think has been the better player (except for last year, maybe), cannot. I think that, because (1) he has won a lot of championships on a very popular team, and (2) he is a genuinely interesting player — the leader of what is arguably the most interesting team (at least to tabloid sports journalism) in baseball — frequently he is lionized at the expense of at many of his peers who are genuinely better players.

Personally I think Derek Jeter is overrated by many fans, and I think Derek Jeter got robbed of an MVP award last year in a very similar way to Tram in ’87. Overrated AND deserving of an MVP: the lights in NYC shine bright, indeed.

I remember guys like Neyer saying he was overrated simply because people wanted to put him in the conversation with ARod and Nomar. And I think that as time has elapsed, it has become more and more clear that Jeter most certainly is in that conversation. He sure looks like a more sure-handed fielder than A-Rod as of the last two years and obviously we can forget about Nomar.

There is a group of people that overrates Derek Jeter. You will meet (or read) people who will tell you that Derek Jeter is the best player of the last two decades. These people will point to his intangible qualities to make this argument, because they are generally willing to acknowledge that he is not statistically the best player of the last two decades. He gets an added boost in peoples’ estimation, because, though he played in the steroid era, he is generally (and, I hope and believe, correctly) perceived not to have used performance enhancing drugs.

Because the aforemention group tends to ignore statistical evidence and rely on nebulous concepts like “intangibles” and “clutch ability”, there has arisen a second group of people that point out that Derek Jeter is overrated — in the sense that he is not the best player of the last two decades, nor a messiah at shortstop who single-handedly delivered his team four championships.

Some people, confronted with the evidence of the second group, make the mistaken inference that in arguing that Jeter is overrated, this second group is claiming that Derek Jeter is not very good at all.

The truth is, I think, that Derek Jeter is overrated — but only in the sense that he is not the best player of his generation. Even if he played in Cleveland, and won no championships, he would be shoe-in for the Hall.

Look at Jeter’s numbers. They’re already better than Trammell’s and he’s played 9 fewer years. He’s more than likely going to end up with 3000 hits, which standing on it’s own will legitimately qualify him for the hall. He’s had three MVP worthy seasons (finishing 3rd, 6th, and 2nd), two of which came during the high-point of the steroid era. He’s a World Series MVP, he’s finished in the top 5 in the batting race 5 times (finishing 2nd twice), top 10 in OBP 5 times, he’s won 3 Gold Gloves and 1 Silver Slugger.

On top of that he’s made more clutch plays than anyone I can remember watching, battles at the plate, plays hard in every phase of the game, and has been remarkably durable while being totally reckless with his body.

But yeah, nobody would know who he is if he played in Cleveland. Just like nobody’s ever heard of Roberto Alomar or Bob Feller or Jim Thome or even Grady Sizemore.

20 games down. The top four teams in the AL Central are only a 1/2 game apart. I can almost guarantee the next 142 games are going to be stressful. Best not to get too worked up about things just yet.

That dude is incredible. He’s in the Stevie Y class of clutch performers who lead by example. He’s completely selfless on the diamond. I’m not saying that he’s the reason they won all those championships, but after living in NYC for 4 years now, I can’t overstate how much he means to that organization.

I think he’s a great, great player, who has been wrongfully painted as a solid, steady, yet overrated player by a majority of stats-based baseball analysts.