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Closing the Books on…Carlos Guillen’s Season

Guillen’s RC27 for the last years are 4.03, 4.45, and 4.83. Those are numbers definitely moving in the right direction, and are approximately double the production of Santi-fante. If Guillen’s numbers keep moving up as they have been, a RC27 of 5.0 is possible. If he can stay healhy for 145 games that would work out to 81 RC.

That was from my offensive preview this season. In the end, he only made it to 135 games, but his RC27 of 7.6 bettered my prediction by 50%. For the season he finished with 108 runs created. Suffice it to say that Carlos Guillen by far exceeded my expectations (let’s face it, he blew us all away).

Now comes the news that Guillen’s season is done, the result of a hustle play in a meaningless September game. He was playing the game the same in September has he played all season, all out. His effort however was just one example of Guillen’s consistency this season.

A look at his offensive numbers over the course of the season reveals that he only had one “bad” month (August). And by “bad” we are talking about .260/.312/.440. Now keep in mind, that the .752 OPS during Guillen’s worst month was still the 5th best among starting shortstops this season. (In other words, for the season, there are only 4 SS’s besides Guillen who are hitting better than .752).

Here are some more splits:
Home: .320/.375/.492
Away: .316/.384/.590

Pre All Star : .321/.391/.558
Post All Star: .307/.359/.516

vs LHP: .269/.315/.457
vs RHP: .348/.416/.594

Okay, so he hits right handers much better than left. But like I mentioned before, those numbers are still better than most of the shortstops out there.

Defensively, Guillen did have 17 errors and his fielding percentage was middle of the pack. His Zone Rating of .837 was 10th best among AL shortstops. However, that is a vast improvement over the .782 that Ramon Santiago had last year. He also seemed to share a chemistry with double-play partner, and mentee (or what ever the opposite of mentor is) Omar Infante.

A final numerical way to look at his contribution to the Tigers is Win Shares. His 25 Win Shares are tops on the team. While his total Win Shares will change since he’s done for the season, he will probably still be on top because Pudge is next closest at 20 WS. It’s also noteworthy that Guillen put up these tremendous numbers while making starts at every spot in the batting order except 8 and 9.

Unfortunately the timing of the injury will leave him short of a couple benchmarks. He’s 3 doubles shy of 40, 3 runs shy of 100, and 3 RBI shy of 100. Also, he is 17 plate apperances shy of 600 which means he misses out on $150,000 of incentive money.

In any case, Guillen endeared himself to all Tiger fans when he signed a 3 year contract extension during the season. The Tigers finally have a star that likes playing for Detroit. He signed early and missed out on free agency during a career year because he was happy here.

It is ashame to see Carlos Guillen’s MVP caliber season cut short due to injury. Fortunately, he’ll be back next year. Whether he can post the same numbers remains to be seen, but it won’t take away from one of the best seasons Tiger fans have witnessed in the last decade.