Tigers Player of the Year: Carlos Guillen
posted in 2006-07 offseason, awards |The good and the bad of the Tigers is this: There’s no one important player. This is bad because you’d like to have someone really consistent who can really cause havoc. This is good because it shows the lineup is pretty consistent up and down. And this made my job selecting a player of the year extremely difficult. In the end, I chose Carlos Guillen. Before I go into more detail on the reasoning, first the guys I didn’t pick.
I could have picked Placido Polanco. His absence in the lineup from mid-August to late September left a hole. The Tigers stunk up the joint. Then he went on to win the American League Championship Series MVP for batting somewhere near the stratosphere. He’s a contact guy, he put a lot of runs on the board in limited chances, and he’s one heck of a Tiger. You want to pick him, no quarrels.
Maybe Craig Monroe was more your flavor. He was among the top of the home runs category in close-and-late situations (1 run or tie game, seventh inning or later) this year. In fact, more than half his homers came that way. You bring a memory of this season to mind, you probably see him hitting a grand slam against the White Sox or a home run against the Yankees in the ninth inning. Maybe some of his five post-season home runs come to mind.
I could have picked Magglio Ordonez. His putting runs on the board wasn’t just because he batted cleanup, or that he was typically buttressed in the lineup by Pudge Rodriguez and Guillen. He really did drive in the highest percentage of runners on base. When he went into a slump after the All-Star Break, the Tigers stopped producing runs. He’s a guy you want on your side, for sure. If you wanted to pick him, and I doubt many did, no questions from me.
Or there was Curtis Granderson’s great center field play, or the way the Tigers almost always seemed to win when he got on base and lose when he didn’t. Maybe you liked Brandon Inge’s glovework and 20-something home runs. Maybe you just like Pudge’s leadership. Whatever your flavor, the Tigers probably provided it this season.
In the end, I took Guillen. He just could not be removed from the lineup. Take him away and Magglio’s threat is easier to negate. Take him out and you remove a guy who made it on base 40% of the times he came to the plate. That might not sound like much among some elite batters, but among the hack-often Tigers, it was much needed. Or you like strange stats, his Value Above Replacement (VORP) was 66.3, among the highest in baseball and behind only Derek Jeter for short stops. Oh, and he had a team high 19 stolen bases. In the end, it was his superstar numbers and quiet leadership that swayed me to believe he was the most valuable Tigers batter.
Guillen was the first among equals.
Sphere It
Nice breakdown, I really think gullen played a hugh role in the teams offensive performance this year, for my money I might take polanco, just for the fact that in august when he wasn’t there the tigers were not good, World Series no Polanco, no Tigers. On my blog, I have started some post season awards, what you said gives me something to think about and I agree with what you have to say, keep it up.
I would pick Guillen hands down. He was awesome. He was the only Tiger hitter that performed consistently well all year long. Even when the rest of the team went into a hitting slump in August and September, he kept hitting. And he quietly kept up the pace all throughout the playoffs. I would argue that he should be an AL MVP candidate as his numbers were comparable to probable MVP Derek Jeter.
[...] There are many good candidates for this award even on a team that was known for their pitchers. The big question is how do we define this award. Maggalo lead the teams in RBI’s, actually had 100 RBI something we haven’t seen here in Detroit in sometime. Or do we look at Polanco and Pudge who might not have had the best numbers, but who consistently did the little things like moving people over by hitting to the right side. Or do we look at Power numbers and look to Thames, Monroe, or Inge who all set personal records for home runs in one year. That leaves us with only Granderson (too many strikeouts to be considered for this award in my mind) or the 1st base combination of Shelton and Casey who together might be a possibility but together they lacked the AB’s. And Neither had a great year, during the season. Also left is the player that I am going to select to receive this award, Carlos Guillen. He was consistently the best hitter on the team. He drove in important runs and really played the best down the strech and in the playoffs. http://www.mackavenuetigers.com/2006/11/05/tigers-player-of-the-year-carlos-guillen/#comments. . In the comments to the Mack Avenue Tigers Blog, Lee Panas makes the argument that he should be a legitimate choice for MVP. I can’t disagree with his argument. He was at least the best hitter on the Tigers. [...]