Is Derek Jeter Overrated?

I'm going to start off by saying that I am a huge, and slightly biased, Yankee fan and Derek Jeter is one of my all-time favorite players.  I've been a huge Yankee fan since the first time I saw Jeter and the rest of the Yankees at The Stadium in June of 1996.  I wore the number 2 and played shortstop for all 10 years of my baseball "career".  Jeter not only is a great player, but also a great role-model.  He goes out there every day and plays the game the way it's supposed to be played.  He may not have the most power or speed or the best glove, but he just does his part every day and tries to make the team better.  Now I've heard countless people, mostly Sox and Mets fans, say Jeter is overrated and overpaid.  Well, I really cant argue the overpaid part, nobody should be getting paid $20 million to play a game, but he is definitely not overrated.  Instead of telling you more about my man-crush for Jeter, lets actually look at his stats.

As of the 2008 season, Jeter's numbers look like this:

1985 G .316 Avg .825 OPS 1467 R 2535 H 1002 RBI 206 HR 275 SB

Assuming Jeter plays 5 more years (until he's 39) and puts up numbers similar to his career averages, he should end up with 3500+ hits, 2000+runs, and 1300+ RBI's.  Thats significant because only three other men have accomplished that feat; Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, and Hank Aaron.  That's some pretty good company.  Still not convinced? Well here's a comparison of the 162 game averages for Jeter and Roberto Clemente, one of the all-time greats:

               Avg    R    H   2B  HR RBI BB SO SB   OBP SLG

Jeter       .316  120  207  34  17  82  66  112  22  .387  .458

Clemente .317   94  200  29  16  87  41   82    6  .359  .475

Obviuosly Clemente was a great defensive outfielder, winning 12 Gold Gloves to go along with his offense.  Jeter has also won 3 Gold Gloves, although he is now, at best, a mediocre defensive shortstop.

In addition to his great regular season numbers, he has consistently performed well in October (and November).  He owns a .309 average with 17 homers, 85 runs and 49 RBIs in 123 postseason games.

Jeter's also won a tremendous amount of awards.  He is a 9 time Allstar, 3 time Gold Glover, 3 time Silver slugger, 2000 World Series MVP and Allstar Game MVP (the only player ever to accomplish this)  1996 AL Rookie of the Year, and 2006 Hank Aaron Award winner.  He's finished