Justice: Jeter Can’t Spark Yanks

David Justice gets on Derek Jeter, via YESNetwork.com (with a hat tip to BBTF):

Remember too, Jeter is the captain and that’s a lot of responsibility. The personality of your team comes from your manager and at times from your veteran leadership. Jeter has never been a vocal leader. He’s always been surrounded by a lot of solid veterans and it’s not like he’s been the sole leader for all these years. My Yankees team in 2000 had many vocal leaders: Tino Martinez. Paul O’Neill. Jorge Posada. Mariano Rivera. Roger Clemens. You had guys that would keep that bench alive and would not allow a team to play .500. Posada is a heck of a vocal leader. Rivera, is an unbelievable vocal leader, and I used to love watching the fire and intensity in Mo before a game and he doesn’t show up until the end of a game.

Jeter is more of a lead-by-example guy. He won’t call a team meeting, doesn’t stand up in a team meeting and doesn’t take the forefront of the floor and say, “This is what we have to do.” His leadership comes from playing hard and approaching the game. I don’t question the heart of the veterans on this ballclub. What I’m saying is sometimes your team needs a jolt of energy, a spark, something to re-adjust the focus. Nobody has given the Yankees that boost. If the Yankees were, for example, a Lou Piniella team, he would have kicked over something and tried to provide a spark. If this was a Kirby Puckett team, one with vocal leadership, guys would close all the doors, stand in the middle of a room and remind the team that we are the Yankees and we are a championship team, so let’s go play like it.

I can’t disagree with what Justice is saying here. But, since Jeter has never been that guy, why not focus on the cast around him instead? The Tino’s and O’Neill’s are now replaced with guys like Giambi and Abreu. Perhaps that’s the bigger problem rather than Jeter just “being Jeter”?

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