With the Tigers being awful for a long time, and merely bad the last 2 year, they have accumulated a pile of players nobody knows about. That’s why it’s been neat to see some the exposure that the Tigers are getting. For one it’s nice to see them get recognition. Second, it’s nice to get an unbiased opinion. We’re used to seeing our Tigers, and we’re used to seeing bad Tigers. Up until this year, I often thought my ability to evaluate players was seriously skewed because of the team I was watching.
Baseball Prospectus has a profile of Carlos Guillen today. This run has done wonders for the “best player you never heard of” or “MVP candidate” talk with regard to Guillen. If he can replicate his 2006 performance next year (which means staying healthy) he stands a good chance to be in the MVP race, as opposed to someone filling out the bottom of tha ballots. (On another note, the profile was penned by Marc Normandin who also blogs at the wonderful Beyond Boxscores)
John Sickels has been running Prospect Retros of some of the more interesting stories in the World Series. It’s fun to look back at these players to see who beat the odds, and who never lived up to expectations. In the last couple days he’s done Tigers Kenny Rogers and Craig Monroe, as well as former Tiger and current Card Juan Encarnacion.