Derek Jeter started the final All-Star Game of his career on Tuesday night at Target Field in Minneapolis. With his career winding down and his farewell tour well underway, the Hall of Fame will also take a look back at Jeter as a baseball player before his career even started.
Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson says that the Hall of Fame will feature a scouting report of Jeter as a high school player in which you can see that scouts thought he would be a great player from the very start.
Besides the tidbit that the scout found it exciting to watch him warm up, let alone play in a real game, are comments about Jeter having a “perfect shortstop body,” having a “loose arm and throwing motion,” and being “very projectible.” It seems like a vast understatement to say that he was projectible, though it would be hard for anybody to know at the time that he would be one of the all-time greats.
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Interestingly enough, this scouting report came courtesy of a Colorado Rockies scout. They might have missed on Jeter, but they did end up with a star shortstop who modeled his game after Jeter in Troy Tulowitzki. The Rockies’ scouting department does not necessarily get a lot of things right, but it appears that at least a couple times they have had good eyes for the shortstop position.