[imported_The Vibesman]

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How a guy who played for eight years suddenly incrased his range factor and zone rating is a mystery to me

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The theory I've heard (and I'm not really good at crunching stats, so I can't prove/disprove) is that Jeter's sub-par range at short is being covered up by A-Rod's superior range at third; to wit, A-Rod gets to a lot of balls that are traditionally the shortstop's, so Jeter has less missed chances. I don't know enough about the stats to know if this is true or not, but it makes sense to me, as Jeter's stats spiked when A-Rod started playing third there, but visually there's nothing different, he's still just a step-and-dive fielder.