This is the best thing I've yet read about Derek Jeter's amazing transformation. Ian O'Connor:

So with Yankees officials and coaches privately hoping their shortstop could restore his diminishing range and table the ultradelicate issue of a possible move to the outfield, Jeter hired a new fitness trainer before last season for the purpose of fielding more balls to his left.

"We discussed how we can keep him in the game as long as he wants to play,” said Jason Riley, director of performance of the Athletes Compound at Tampa's Saddlebrook Resort. "Derek said it may not be eight to 10 years at shortstop, but that he wanted to play that long.

"So in his case we were looking at speed and agility. Our main focus was improving his defensive skills and first-step quickness.”

Riley discovered immediately why Jeter had little trouble making plays to his right, to his rear and toward the infield grass, and yet struggled when moving toward second base.

Jeter had limited ankle mobility and far less flexibility in his left hip than he did in his right, a condition not uncommon for a ballplayer hitting and throwing from the right side.

On the recommendation of Jeter's agent, Casey Close, Riley pieced together a program of drills, and the shortstop started performing them in the first week of January 2008. Cone drills. Shuffle drills. Resistance drills.

For what it's worth, the statistics back up this explanation precisely. According to both Ultimate Zone Rating and John Dewan's Runs Saved, Jeter went from being awful in 2007 to merely subpar in 2008 to solid in 2009. Not Gold Glove- quality, mind you. But plenty good enough to shout down any notion of a position switch.

At 35.

If all this is right, rather than just a blip -- and two seasons would be a fairly massive blip -- then what Jeter's done is both fantastically valuable and exceptionally rare (if not unique, which it might be).

But now that we've (again) acknowledged Derek Jeter's general wonderfulness, am I the only one who's wondering ... Why don't more players do things like this? It's seemed to me for a long time that the game might someday be revolutionized if teams could figure out how to keep young pitchers healthy, and I believe that progress on that front has been, and is being, made. But what if teams could figure out a way to quicken the first steps of each of their middle infielders?

Since 2007, Jeter's added something like 20 runs to the Yankees' bottom line, just defensively. Granted, most players aren't willing to work quite as hard as him. But it's now possible to precisely identify any fielder's weaknesses: going left, going right, coming in, moving out, etc. Apparently it's also possible to design exercises and drills to correct those weaknesses.

It's been my assumption for some years that as we move forward, the hitters will have all the advantages. To the point where baseball might begin to look like slow-pitch softball played by steroid-fueled behemoths who swing for the bleachers with every pitch.

I think my fears have been groundless. While it would be foolish to assume that everything will find a perfectly natural balance, I now realize that it's impossible to predict what curiosity and technology and money will bring to the game. And I know that if Derek Jeter can become a good major league shortstop at 35, just about anything is possible.