I don’t care about the Hall of Fame, but sometimes, you have to pay attention to the discourse — in 2021, that meant following all the coverage as Derek Jeter was inducted. I think there’s a narrative about Jeter among certain Yankee fans, that he is the last bastion of The Eye Test, the Will to Win, the final redoubt of a pre-analytics age. We know Derek Jeter is a Hall of Famer because we saw him be one, and no reconsideration of his defense is needed or wanted.
And I think this is mostly a bad take — sabermetrics is just one way to view a player’s career, and indeed, it’s often a more comprehensive lens.