Tearing it Up
JETER OF ALL TRADES ... In the past two weeks, Jeter has been involved in 66 trades; for the purpose of accurate comparisons, we'll only look at the 23 in which he was swapped straight up for another player or for a package of players. The package-for-package trades are harder to use in analyzing an individual player's potential worth, but they can be fascinating to review. And of course, this list of trades is taken completely out of context; unlikely as it may be, someone dealing Jeter might have both Garciaparra and Aurilia and be freer to swap Jeter at low value to fill a need.

Slumping
FELIX FERMIN WASN'T AVAILABLE? ... There have been some, well, wacky Jeter trades recently; one GM dealt the future Hall of Famer straight up for Cristian Guzman -- and the trade wasn't even protested. Consider that in two other leagues Jeter was worth both Guzman and Tim Hudson and Guzman and Al Leiter, and you get an idea of how lopsided that first one was. A third deal brought home Leiter and Edgar Renteria -- who still has name value, but who deserves his #17 ranking at shortstop in the ESPN Player Rater.

At the Plate
TAKE ANOTHER (SALES) PITCH ... Jeter has been traded even-up for the following position players, listed in order of current value: Sammy Sosa, Andruw Jones and Rich Aurilia. Some possible explanations ... The Sosa owner was either a blindly loyal Yankees fan or bizarrely overloaded in the outfield and weak in the infield ... The Jones owner needed help in batting average and steals while the Jeter owner was in desperate need of power ... The Aurilia owner conned a Giants fan.

Probable Starters May 9: Hernandez @TB (Kennedy) May 10: Wells @MIN (Milton) May 11: Lilly @MIN (Lohse) May 12: Mussina @MIN (Reed) May 13: Off Day

From the Rubber
CLOSING THE DEAL ... Saves are so important in fantasy baseball that Jeter has been traded straight up for Robb Nen, John Smoltz, Trevor Hoffman -- and Danny Graves? He's also been deemed fair price for two starting pitchers: AL wins leader Mark Buehrle and Hall of Fame teammate Roger Clemens. A separate deal for both Buehrle and hot-starting Shea Hillenbrand, excellent on its own merits, pales in comparison to one where Jeter brought Greg Maddux and NL saves leader Mike Williams.

On the Mend
OUCH, MY TEAM HURTS ... Other Jeter trades were clearly efforts to patch multiple lineup holes; the best of these was probably for Jeff Kent and Frank Thomas, though depending on need, the deal for Scott Rolen and Orlando Cabrera could work well. Miguel Tejada was accompanied in one case by Derrek Lee and another by Esteban Yan; neither of those looks promising in the long run. Jeter-for-a-closer turned into Nen and Jose Hernandez, Bob Wickman and Juan Uribe and Ugueth Urbina with both Craig Counsell and Jacque Jones. Uribe's got potential, but the deal of him and Livan Hernandez for Jeter was just strange.