When Jeter re-signed with the Yankees in December 2010, he negotiated a three-year deal with a $9.5 million player option for 2014. And like any other Major Leaguer under contract, he is certainly is entitled to every year and every cent his team agreed to give him. Likewise, the Yankees surely knew that absent the unthinkable, Jeter’s option would be picked up, and made their roster decisions accordingly.

It was a bit absurd for New York to then replace that $9.5 million option with a one-year, $12 million contract last offseason, especially after Jeter spent almost all of 2013 on the disabled list except for 73 late, putrid plate appearances, but $2.5 million is not make-or-break money for the New York Yankees. They were already committed to Jeter taking up that roster spot; once that decision was made, the exact price point was immaterial.

What Jeter’s option (and eventual new contract) did do, though, was effectively prohibit General Manager Brian Cashman from any substantial engagement in last winter’s shortstop market. There was speculation that the team might go after Jhonny Peralta to play a year at third base and then move over to short in 2015, but the Yankees never expressed any public interest in that route. Peralta ultimately went to St. Louis to become the everyday shortstop there, and is putting up perhaps his best all-around season for the Cardinals as they march toward another NL Central crown.

Instead, the Yankees signed a bevy of uninspiring middle infielders to complement Jeter — utilityman and defensive whiz Brendan Ryan’s return on a two-year deal being the most notable of that bunch — and decided to make do with what they had, hoping Jeter had one more good season left in the tank.

He didn’t.

Through Sunday’s action, Jeter was hitting .254/.302/.308 in 608 PA for an OPS of .609 (74 OPS+), per baseball-reference.com. He remains a statue in the field, which is nothing new. Jeter has been a terrible defender for at least a decade now — save a brief reprieve just after Girardi took over in 2008 and 2009 when, for the first time in years, Jeter was asked to work with the coaching staff on proper defensive positioning. Age and injury, however, quickly eroded even those small gains, and what the Yankees had this season was a barely-above-replacement-level shortstop hitting second in the lineup and hurting them every day in the field.

The only two regular shortstops worse than Jeter at the plate this season — Cincinnati’s Zack Cozart and Milwaukee’s Jean Segura — at least have some excuse; Cozart just turned 29 but was a late-bloomer out of college and is a plus defensive player, while Segura is only 24 and had a strong rookie campaign last season. Jeter was bad and hurt when he was 39, and it’s not exactly a shock that he’s bad when healthy now that he’s 40.

But none of this matters in the scheme of Jeter’s full participation this season. The man could’ve hit .100/.200/.200 from Spring Training up through this weekend’s games, racking up 600 plate appearances of just the foulest, most unappealing baseball possible, and he’d still be plodding steadily onward toward 650. At most, he’d have been dropped in the batting order, if that. This season has been marketed relentlessly as Jeter’s Final Year; benching him would have been undignified, but more importantly, it would be bad for the brand.