Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Derek Jeter to retire after the 2014 season

One year after we saw the farewell tour for Mariano Rivera, it will be El Capitan's turn in 2014.

Earlier today, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter announced via his Facebook page that the 2014 season will be his final season.

While he's never won a regular-season MVP, Jeter helped lead the Yankees to five World Series titles and will be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.

Breaking the franchise's hit record several seasons ago, Jeter currently ranks 10th on the all-time hits list with 3,316. Assuming Jeter stays healthy, which is no given after playing in only 17 games in 2013 and about to turn 40 in June, he has an excellent chance to move up to sixth all-time in hits.

With 120 hits, he will pass Cap Anson (3,435, 6th), Honus Wagner (3,420, 7th), Carl Yastrzemski (3,419, 8th) and Paul Molitor (3,319, 9th). There is little chance that he gets the 200 hits he needs to pass Tris Speaker (3,515, 5th), but Jeter did get 216 hits just two seasons ago (2012). (He's reached the 200-hit milestone eight times in his career.)

Not only does Jeter rank first among Yankees' players in hits, he ranks first in games (2,602), at-bats (10,614) and stolen bases (348). Jeter ranks third in runs scored (1,876) behind Babe Ruth (1,959) and Lou Gehrig (1,888) and sixth in runs batted in (1,261).

Phillies sign Burnett to one-year deal, Hamels won't be ready for Opening Day

According to Jim Salisbury of CSN Philly, the Phillies have agreed to a one-year deal with free-agent starting pitcher A.J. Burnett and that the deal is worth $16 million.

Even though he had a losing record (10-11) last season with the Pirates, Burnett tied a previous career low in ERA (3.30) and struck out 209 batters in 191.0 innings.

Not only did Burnett's K/9 rate of 9.848 set a career best, but he ranked first in the National League in the category. Miami's Jose Fernandez (9.747) and New York's Matt Harvey (9.639) finished second and third, respectively.

In addition, his HR/9 rate of 0.518 was only slightly worse than his career-best rate of 0.517 (2005). The only N.L. pitchers that had a better rate in 2013 were Harvey (0.353), Clayton Kershaw (0.420) and Jhoulys Chacin (0.502).

Burnett will be the team's No. 3 starter behind Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels. That said, Hamels (shoulder tendinitis) is currently behind in his throwing program and won't be ready for the start of the season.