Don't know if anybody's noticed, but Derek Jeter's batting average is closing in on .300.

I bring this up because quietly, or at least as quietly as anything Derek Jeter does, the Yankee captain is having a pretty good season. I guess now that the pressure of reaching that milestone 3,000th hit is off, Jeter has been much more relaxed in the past month or so.

I'm not saying Jeter is at the level he was five, six, seven years ago, when he was arguably one of the top players in the game, but he seems far from done.

By Jeter's standards, last offseason was awful. Messy contract negotiations (although how messy can contract negotiations when you still end up with around $17 million) were followed by screams from many early in the year he should be dropped in the order, benched or released.

With all that, Jeter kept plugging away and now finds himself a big part of this Yankees team.

Maybe the Captain has a couple good years left.