MIAMI — Derek Jeter’s moment has finally arrived.
After a year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jeter will finally make his way to Cooperstown, N.Y., to be enshrined in the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday. He will be joined by fellow Class of 2020 inductees Larry Walker, Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons.
While in New York, key moments from Jeter’s playing days with the New York Yankees will resurface. The nearly 3,500 hits. The five World Series titles. The defensive highlights — from the flip against the Oakland Athletics in the 2001 American League Division Series to the jump throws to the dive into the stands in 2004 against the Red Sox. The walk-off single in his final home game in 2014. The nicknames “The Captain” and “Mr. October” are sure to be included in some way.
He will make the customary induction speech, one he was still writing less than a week before the ceremony was set to take place.
“It’s something I tried to take my time with,” Jeter said on a conference call Thursday. “Write down notes. I didn’t want to get help from anyone. I didn’t want anyone to see it before I deliver it. But I’ve had some speeches. I had to address the crowd before we closed Yankee Stadium. In terms of addressing the crowd, I’ve done that before, but this is a little bit longer. You’re talking about a speech that’s 10-15 minutes. It’s kind of hard to cover your entire career in that short period of time, but I’m still working on it.”
And when that speech is over, when the ceremony celebrating his Hall of Fame playing career finishes, Jeter will make his way back to South Florida to continue his current baseball endeavor as the Miami Marlins’ CEO.
The Marlins are finishing up their fourth season under the ownership group led by Jeter and majority owner Bruce Sherman, a group that came in after the 2017 season with the goal of rebuilding the organization from the bottom up in an attempt to create long-term sustainability and, eventually, wins.
“I like to compete,” Jeter said. “I became vocal probably the last 10 or so years in my career that that’s what I wanted to do next. I wanted to be a part of an ownership group and I want to be, have an opportunity to build something that was special. Teams don’t come up for sale that often, and we were fortunate to get the opportunity here. So, look people say it’s a challenge, but I look at it as an opportunity. We’re still competing — just not me personally on the field.”
Where things stand
The foundation has been created for what Jeter wants to accomplish.
The Marlins’ overhauled minor league system now ranks among the top five in baseball. Twenty-seven of their top 30 prospects according to MLB Pipeline were acquired since the new ownership group took over.
The majority of his front office and key baseball decision makers have ties to the Yankees organization he grew up in as a player.
First-year general manager Kim Ng was the Yankees’ assistant general manager from 1998 to 2001 and was one of the main people in negotiating Jeter’s 10-year, $189 million contract extension as a player.
Assistant general manager Dan Greenlee spent five years as a player development analyst for the Yankees.
Vice president of player development and scouting Gary Denbo spent 23 years with the Yankees, holding various scouting duties before spending three years as the Yankees’ vice president of player development from 2015 to 2017, before joining the Marlins.
Director of professional scouting Hadi Raad spent seven years with the Yankees (most notably director of minor league operations) before joining the Marlins in November 2019.
Director of amateur scouting D.J. Svihlik spent 14 years with the Yankees, 10 as an area scout and four as a national cross checker, before joining the Marlins.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘Yankees feel,’ ” Jorge Posada, Jeter’s teammate for 17 years who is working as a special advisor to Marlins baseball operations, said in 2019, “but the organization itself is moving in the right direction.”
Ng, who Jeter hired as general manager in November, said the the characteristics that made Jeter a Hall of Fame player — discipline, an even-keeled nature — are still on display even after he transitioned to the executive role
“I think that just speaks to who he is,” Ng said. “This guy’s had a Hall of Fame career for 20 plus years and he still wants to work more and strive for something that we’ve never seen. That’s him. Plain and simple.”
But Jeter has said he also understands his limitations.
“One thing I’m very good at,” Jeter said, “is knowing what I don’t know, and I surround myself with people who are much smarter than I am, and I lean on them for advice.
“I like to get the opinions of the people that we put in place. I’ve always valued the opinions of the people that we brought in. ... Our group works collaboratively. And there’s a lot of conversations.”
‘You’re judged by winning’
The conversations nowadays are shifting from putting together the organization Jeter envisioned to winning with that group in place.
“Ultimately,” Jeter said, “you’re judged by winning. ... They remember you if you win.”
But so far under his tenure, the Marlins ... still aren’t winning. They went a combined 120-203 in his first two seasons, a pair of expected losing seasons after just about every big-name player (Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna, Dee Strange-Gordon, J.T. Realmuto) was traded away in return for prospects to build the foundation of the team’s minor-league system.
After making the playoffs with a 31-29 record in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season — a year in which the Marlins navigated through a COVID-19 outbreak and more than 150 roster moves — they have once again regressed to the bottom of the National League East in 2021. Miami entered Tuesday’s series opener against the New York Mets with a 57-80 record, one loss from guaranteeing the team’s 11th non-winning season in the past 12 years.
“We have to sit down and we have to evaluate the organization,” Jeter said after the trade deadline. “This year is disappointment up to this point. I think everyone in the clubhouse should be saying the same thing. If they’re not, then something’s wrong with them. We have high expectations. So we have to figure out ways to get better.”
‘The future is here now’
There have been glimpses of what the club could have at its disposal next year and beyond as those top-ranked prospects begin getting regular time at the big leagues.
The Marlins boast a young-yet talented rotation led by Sandy Alcantara, National League Rookie of the Year contender Trevor Rogers and top-100 prospects Edward Cabrera and Sixto Sanchez, although a shoulder injury sidelined Sanchez for the 2021 season.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. has emerged as an everyday starting middle infielder, primarily playing second base but also getting spot time at shortstop.
Outfielders Bryan De La Cruz and Jesus Sanchez are both impressing in the final stages of the season, giving hope that they can hold down one if not two starting spots in upcoming seasons.
“The future is here now,” said shortstop Miguel Rojas, the club’s de facto captain. “Before I used to talk to you guys about how the future was in the minors and how we’re developing players in Double A and Triple A. Now, you’re seeing these guys getting an opportunity, getting a chance to show what they can do.”
Rojas was an adamant supporter of the ongoing rebuild from the onset. At the trade deadline in 2019, when Rojas’ name was floated around as a possible trade candidate, he expressed his desire to see the plan through. He signed a contract extension that September.
“He’s always been around,” Rojas said of Jeter. “You see him around the cage now and around the players a lot. For me, it’s been a huge help because I’m trying to lead a team now, something that he did in New York. I’m just happy for him that he’s the owner of this team now and I can be around him.”
What’s the biggest advice Rojas received from Jeter on that leadership front?
“For me, it’s being able to listen to people and know how to approach different personalities,” Rojas said. “Not everybody’s the same. He played with a lot of egos and a lot of players, different players over the years. You have to understand that not everybody’s the same, and you have to know how to approach them. ... Take the moment and take chances to get to know your teammates.”
Chisholm, a native of the Bahamas who was acquired by the Marlins in 2019 from the Arizona Diamondbacks, calls Jeter his mentor and said he talks with Jeter regularly. Chisholm said Jeter has helped him stay calm and refresh his mind when needed as he maneuvers through his first full MLB season that has had its share of ups and downs.
“He talks to me and gets my head right when things don’t go my way,” Chisholm said. “He always calls me and tells me ‘Hey, you’ve got to just keep on fighting and don’t give up.’ ”
Jeter speaks these messages from experience. He’s passing them down to his new group of players, in hopes they can obtain the success he did as a player.
“I always felt as though you’re trying to chase something and I think that’s the only way that you can be,” Jeter said. “That’s the only way you’re going to improve. You always have to try to get better.”
