Revisiting the Carlos Guillen Trade: One of the Moves That Changed the Tigers

Sometimes an off day sends you down a baseball rabbit hole. For me, it was this post from Not Gaetti and then another from Sleeper Tigers that got me thinking about Carlos Guillen again.

Guillen is one of those Tigers players from the mid-2000s who I think we remember as being good, but maybe not quite how good. He gets understandably overshadowed when we talk about that era because the names around him were enormous. Ivan Rodriguez was the free-agent signing that told baseball the Tigers were finally serious. Magglio Ordonez hit one of the most famous home runs in franchise history. Justin Verlander became Justin Verlander. Miguel Cabrera eventually arrived and became one of the greatest hitters of his generation.

But go back to Jan. 8, 2004, and one of Dave Dombrowski's best moves was sitting there almost quietly among everything else the Tigers were doing.

Detroit acquired Guillen from Seattle for Ramon Santiago and minor league infielder Juan Gonzalez. The circumstances that created the deal are almost as interesting as what Guillen became. Seattle had been looking to change its shortstop situation and attempted to acquire Omar Vizquel from Cleveland, but that deal fell apart after Vizquel's physical. The Mariners then signed Rich Aurilia and moved Guillen to Detroit the same day.

Seattle was not dumping some washed-up veteran. Guillen was only 28 and had been a useful major league shortstop. In 2003, he hit .276/.359/.394 with a 104 OPS+, good for 2.5 Baseball-Reference WAR. He just had not yet developed into the hitter Detroit was about to get.

That changed immediately.

In his first season with the Tigers, Guillen hit .318/.379/.542 with 37 doubles, 10 triples, 20 home runs and 97 RBI. His .921 OPS translated to a 143 OPS+, and Baseball-Reference credited him with 4.6 WAR. He made the All-Star team and finished 24th in MVP voting.

Considering where the Tigers were coming from, that matters even more. Detroit had just lost 119 games in 2003. They were trying to turn themselves back into a legitimate major league organization, and Guillen immediately gave them an All-Star-caliber shortstop without costing them anything close to an elite prospect package.

The part of Guillen's Tigers career that really stands out to me now is the offensive consistency during his prime.

From 2004 through 2008, he hit .308 with 157 doubles, 30 triples, 75 home runs and 361 RBI while making three All-Star teams. That's five seasons of production in the middle of Detroit's transition from one of baseball's worst organizations to an American League contender.

And his best season might have come at exactly the right time.

Guillen hit .320/.400/.519 in 2006 with 41 doubles, 19 home runs, 85 RBI, 100 runs scored and 20 stolen bases. Baseball-Reference had him at 6.0 WAR and a 136 OPS+, and he finished 10th in the AL MVP voting.

We remember the 2006 Tigers so much for pitching, and understandably so. Verlander, Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman, Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney became the identity of that club. Ordonez's home run against Oakland is the image everyone has of that postseason.

But Guillen was arguably their best position player over the course of the season.

Even in October, he kept hitting. Guillen batted .362/.434/.574 over Detroit's 13 postseason games in 2006.

That is not some secondary piece of the pennant-winning roster. That is one of the players making the entire thing work.

Eventually injuries started to change Guillen's career, and the Tigers began moving him around the diamond. He played shortstop, first base, third base, left field and eventually second base as Detroit tried to keep his bat available while managing the wear on his body.

That versatility is another reason I think his Tigers career ages pretty well.

He was no longer necessarily the shortstop Detroit had originally acquired, but the organization continued finding ways to use him. Over eight seasons with the Tigers, Guillen hit .297 with 95 home runs, 449 RBI and an .842 OPS.

There is also a pretty funny footnote to the trade.

Ramon Santiago, the primary player Detroit sent Seattle, was released by the Mariners after the 2005 season. On Jan. 4, 2006, he signed back with the Tigers. So Detroit traded Santiago for Guillen, got Guillen's best years, and then basically got Santiago back anyway. Santiago wound up becoming exactly what the Tigers needed him to be for years, a dependable utility infielder who remained with the organization into the next Tigers contender.

It is difficult to draw up a trade much better than that.

The Miguel Cabrera trade will always be the defining trade of the Dombrowski era, and nothing really needs to challenge it. Detroit acquired a future Hall of Fame hitter who won two MVP awards and a Triple Crown.

But the Guillen trade deserves its own place when discussing how those Tigers teams were constructed.

Dombrowski didn't turn Detroit around with one type of move. Rodriguez and Ordonez came through free agency. Verlander came through the draft. Placido Polanco came through another terrific trade. Guillen came from identifying a player another organization viewed as replaceable and finding considerably more value than Seattle apparently believed was there.

That might be the most interesting part to revisit now.

Seattle looked at Guillen after the 2003 season and decided it could improve at shortstop. Detroit looked at the same player and saw someone worth acquiring for Ramon Santiago and a minor leaguer.

Guillen then went from a 104 OPS+ in his final season with Seattle to a 143 OPS+ in his first season with Detroit. Two years later, he produced six WAR for a Tigers team that went to the World Series.

And when you start looking back at how Detroit climbed out of that 119-loss hole, that trade belongs right near the beginning of the story.

Carlos Guillen was not simply a nice player during that era.

For several years, he was one of the best players the Tigers had.