Ozzie was appreciably better than Omar. (Although I'm still not sure the difference meets the Ass and Tea Kettle Standardtm established earlier - but fair enough.)

What are the premium defensive positions? I checked at one site and they reckon CF, C, SS, 3B, but KK says Ichiro isn't in a premium position.

As someone who resisted the Jeter hype for years, I have to give the man his due. Yet, stating the obvious here, the hype has always been the big hurdle to cross, as I assume it is for most contrarians. It's the same reason I'm occasionally cynical of Brett Farve, Bill Parcells, Kobe Bryant or Peyton Manning. Not that I don't think all of them are first-ballot HOFers, but that the national media over-hypes them at times, and more unforgivingly, gives them a pass when they occasionally stink up the joint. The most recent example of this was Bryant in the NBA Finals. He, by and large, had a sub-par even at times putrid series, yet who did the majority of the media blame for LA's loss? Yep, Larar Odom and Pau Gasol. Now hey, I'm not defending the play of those guys (they stunk too), but if all three had played well and LA had won, you know who would have received the lion's share of the credit. It's the same thing with Parcells, Farve and Manning. When the Cowboys won Parcells would be given the credit. When they lost it was on the players. When Manning would throw three or four pics against the Patriots, we were told they lost because the Colts defense didn't give him a chance, or his offensive line had a bad game. Similarly, when Farve stunk up the joint, it was on his receivers, etc., etc., etc. In fact, the only guys who I saw consistenly live up to their hype in the big moment were Jordan, Montana and Mariano Rivera. In that order.

Which brings us back to Jeter. Yes, he certainly has a career's worth of October and November highlights, but there were also a few post-season series where he batted .185 or .220. Still, he was the second most valuable player on those championship teams, which is no small thing, and moreover he's going to end up with 3,000 hits. Yeah, I know. He was never the best fielder, but he also wasn't god-awful, and he was tremendous base-runner, and yep, I mean tremendous. In fact, career-wise, I'd take him over Ripken, but that's a whole other argument. Bottom line is the guy often came through in the clutch, and maybe more importantly, he has the longevity and stats worthy of one of the greats.

In 2004 my then 12 year old son and I sat as Red Sox fans frequently do, watching the endless struggle between the Yankees and the Red Sox play itself out. This night was the first of July, and would see us witnessing a play that by any measure was just plain silly in its execution.

I am not a Yankees fan- just the opposite in fact. (But I cried like a baby the other night when Yankee Stadium was forever banished to the altar of all that once was in the pursuit of all that will be...) Yet four years ago I screamed in admiration and frustration when I watched Derek Jeter plunge headlong into the stands to catch a ball in the top of the 12th inning to insure that the game against the hated Red Sox would continue with a tie score to the bottom of the 12th.

Derek Jeter may or may not be a great shortstop in the overall scheme of things, but on that night, and on that play, he became immortal. Perhaps he was lucky to come up with the ball, nonetheless he did not hesitate for even a moment while running at full steam towards the stands. The blood and bruises on his face stood as mute testament to his willingness to apply every effort to achieve his goal. Call me silly, but I believe that this dedication and willingness to sacrifice is what identifies and distinguishes the truly great player from the otherwise talented but overpaid and otherwise average player. It is the hallmark of a player that leads by example, and much to my regret as a Bosox fan it is why Derek Jeter will one day be in the Hall of Fame while Nomar sits on the outside looking in...

OK, I'll bite.

Just using your stats, which are pretty blunt instrument -- they don't take into account what kind of pitchers these guys were playing behind, what surface, etc. -- look at how many plays they each made per game. That is, add put-outs and assists:

Vizquel 4.37

Smith 5.03

That's a difference of 15 percent.

Just for giggles, let's look at Jeter, whose career fielding percentage, by the way, is .975. He has 2,952 putouts and 5,014 assists in 1,971 games. That's 4.04 plays per game.

The difference between Vizquel and Jeter is 8 percent. So by that measure, Smith was better than Vizquel by about twice the margin that Vizquel was better than Jeter. And I think we've all already agreed that Vizquel was a great fielder and Jeter was, at best, below average.

An argument could be made that putouts are largely dependent on others -- the second baseman making a play and relaying to second -- or are pop flies, which almost everyone catches. So just looking at assists, it's Smith 3.33 per game, Vizquel 2.85, Jeter 2.54. Now Smith is 17 percent better than Vizquel, who is 12 percent better than Jeter.

Again: This is not a knock on Vizquel. Smith was just preposterously good.

I don't think there is any objective measure of any reliability that doesn't put Smith head, shoulders, ass and teakettle above Vizquel as a fielder.

Here's what I found at Baseball-Refernce.com:

Omar:

Games 2648

Put Outs 4032

Assists 7539

Errors 183

Double Plays 1697

Fielding Percentage .984

Ozzie:

Games 2511

Put Outs 4249

Assists 8375

Double Plays 1590

Errors 281

Fielding Percentage .978

Someone who understands statistics a lot better than me (most people reading this, I'm pretty sure) would have to explain whether or not these stats show that Ozzie is clearly a much better shortstop than Omar. I can see a few noticeable differences: Ozzie has 200 more put-outs and 800 more assists in 200 fewer games, while Omar has 100 fewer errors in 200 more games, and a higher lifetime fielding percentage. The difference doesn't seem that obvious to me, but I could be wrong.