And not in the good way.
Entering his contract year with the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter will (by most accounts) resign with the Bombers at the end of the season. Many think that the negotiation process will sound similar to the following:
DJ: Hi Brian, how's it going?
Cashman: Good Jete, here's your contract. Fill in the dollar amount and how many years you want, and we'll just skip to the signing part.
DJ: 4 years at $17 million a year sounds about right.
Cashman: Sounds good. Let's go announce it to the press.
The dollar amount or the final year count might be off, but let's just use that fictional conversation as a baseline.
Now that we've got the heavy lifting out of the way, let's jump into the Delorian and travel back to the 1992 Draft; the one where the Yankees select Derek with the sixth overall pick.
Let's say, one of the teams before the Bombers selects Jeter. Your options are; the Astros, the Indians, the Expos, the Orioles, and the Reds. Now, by process of comparing the starting short stops of the 1992 and the 1996 teams, we'll see if we can't logically eliminate any of those five teams from legitimately drafting Jeter:
We can easily eliminate the Orioles and the Reds from consideration. There's no way either team drafts a shortstop with two future Hall of Famers at that position. The Indians can probably be eliminated from that list as well; Vizquel will also head to the Hall, whenever he decides to finally retire.
So, that leaves us with two legitimate teams, the Expos and the Astros, that could have potentially drafted Jeter.
Here comes the main point of this article.
What happens to Jeter's career if he's selected by either team? Does he still become the face of baseball? How many World Series does he win? Is he dumped in a salary saving move? Is Jeter signing anything more than a one year deal with a team option if he's playing for the Astros or the Nationals (Expos). What are the chances that he'd even be on the team that drafted him?
Astros:
We're also looking at someone that could have been traded in the early turn of the new century, so figuring out if Jeter would have lasted this long in Houston is a crap shoot.
Expos/Nationals:
In 2002, Omar Minaya would have salivated at the chance to continue to drive a major league baseball franchise into the ground. Trading Jeter would have been a standard move.
If by chance Jeter happened to survive any Expo fire sale, he currently could be calling our Nation's capitol home. So, along side Adam Dunn, Jeter could have been "sort of almost traded" by GM Mike Rizzo at the trade deadline this season.
End of the 2010 Season:
Let's imagine that Jeter does stay on either team's roster at the end of this season. Both the Astros and Nationals are in the middle of a rebuilding mode, and Jeter (according to Elias Sports) currently ranks as a Type A free agent, which would net either team two compensation draft picks in next year's draft.
A draft that is currently being considered to be the strongest class in recent memory.
Both teams would offer (and Jeter would decline) arbitration. God knows where he would sign; the Giants could use a shortstop and so could the (gasp) Red Sox at this point.
In conclusion:
It's always fun to go back and see what happens when you re-write history, and in this case, it's almost mind boggling to imagine a world where Derek Jeter isn't the Yankee Captain and face of the game. If Jeter winds up in a small market team, he'd probably be in the same class as guys like David Dejesus, Stephen Drew, or John McDonald; quality players that just seem to go under the media's radar.
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