Blog Poll - AL Awards (week 5)

David Bloom has the results of his weekly blog poll up at Baseball Happenings. Each week a group of bloggers (including myself) votes on the the MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards based on season results up through that week. This week we did the American League and the leaders are listed below. The complete results can be found at baseball Happenings.

MVP

 1. Manny Ramirez
 2. Casey Kotchman
 3. Josh Hamilton, Carlos Quentin (Tie)

Cy Young

 1. Cliff Lee
 2. Zack Greinke
 3. Ervin Santana, Chien-Ming Wang (Tie)

Rookie of the Year

 1. Jacoby Ellsbury
 2. Greg Smith
 3. Evan Longoria

Schuyler Williamson Interview

Mark Anderson at TigsTown has a very interesting interview with Schuyler Williamson , a former Tigers draftee, who left baseball to serve in the army. His experiences include 15 months in Iraq.

Sheffield batting sixth and playing left field

The drastic move has been made - Gary Sheffield is going to play left field and bat sixth. Huh?
WDFN has tonight's starting line-up and some quotes from Jim Leyland. Here is how they will line up:

Granderson cf

Polanco 2b

Guillen 3b

Ordonez dh

Cabrera 1b

Sheffield lf
Joyce rf

Renteria ss

Rodriguez c

It was apparently Sheffield's idea to play left field as he thinks it will help his offense. I'm skeptical whether playing left is going to help him at the plate. I'm pretty sure it's not going to help them defensively as Magglio Ordonez is a better fielder and he will be the designated hitter.

At this point, it looks like a desperate move to me. There are a couple of scenarios where it might make sense though. If Sheffield does ok in left field, it might allow them to move Carlos Guillen to designated hitter and Brandon Inge to third base. For now though, Leyland wants Guillen to be the third baseman. The other possibility is that it might allow for a rotating designated hitter where they can use the spot to spell different players rather than always having Sheffield there.

The most puzzling thing about the change is that I am surprised they feel that Sheffield is healthy enough to play in the field. It seems pretty risky to have a player recovering from a shoulder injury to be playing left field where he'll have to make long throws and possibly crash into walls.

Jacque Jones designated for assignment

Jim Leyland hinted at some "drastic" changes for the upcoming series versus the Red Sox and the first change has already happened. Jacque Jones has been designated for assignment and Matt Joyce has been recalled from Toledo. Jones had been batting .165 with four extra base hits in 79 at bats this year. They have ten days to either trade or release Jones with a trade being highly unlikely.

Joyce is a 23 year old left-handed hitter who was off to a good start for the Mud Hens this year - .299/.367/.536 in 97 at bats. He batted .257/.333/.454 for AA Erie last year but finished strong after a very slow start. He was also named the best defensive outfielder in the Eastern League by Baseball America and has an excellent arm which is one of the things that Jones lacked.

This move was a bit of a surprise but not a drastic move. It's good to see that they aren't going to stick with a veteran who isn't producing or showing any signs that he will. Why did they not bring up Clete Thomas who fared well earlier in the year ? It's because he was off to a slow start for Toledo - .213 in 47 at bats.

I would imagine that Joyce will get a chance to start right away and perhaps platoon with Marcus Thames or Ryan Raburn. We may see him tonight along with other changes.

Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame update - 2008

Last year, I wrote about a Detroit Tigers Hall Of Fame we have been creating at MotownSports. After many months of research, debating and voting, 65 members have now been inducted. Officially named the Bluhm Memorial Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame, the project is led by Dave Troppens (known on MotownSports as DTroppens) and Alan Chichester (DT34456884), two excellent writers and long time contributors to MotownSports. For those who don't know, Brian Bluhm was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings in April. He was a very avid Tigers fan, a friend to many of us in the Tigers online community and one of the most active participants in this project.

We currently have around 25 voters, many of whom have been on the project since the initial election. In each election, each voter is allowed to vote for as many as five players. Managers, executives and broadcasters are also eligible. Any player receiving 75% of the votes gets into the Hall of Fame. That first election included players who finished their careers with the Tigers by 1915. The second election included all players who ended their Tigers careers between 1916 and 1920. Each week, we had an election including players from a new five-year period. In June, 2007 we conducted the voting for players who ended their careers between 2001-2005 and this completed the first phase of the project.

Later in the year, we held special elections for the Detroit Wolverines (a National League team from 1881-1888) and the Detroit Stars (a Negro League team in the 1920s and 1930s). There will also be annual elections for newly retired players and for players who received a significant portion of votes but failed to get inducted in earlier elections. This week we concluded one of those elections and three new players have been added to the Hall of Fame: Bobby Higginson, Mike Henneman and Tony Phillips.

If you go to the second link above, you'll see a profile of each of the 65 members elected so far. A brief summary is included in the Table below.

Name	Position	First Year as Tiger	Last Year as Tiger
Ed Killian	Pitcher	1904	1910
George Mullin	Pitcher	1902	1913
Sam Crawford	Outfielder	1903	1917
Bill Donovan	Pitcher	1903	1918
Hughie Jennings	Manager	1907	1920
Donie Bush	Shortstop	1908	1921
Bobby Veach	Outfielder	1912	1923
Ty Cobb	Outfielder	1905	1926
Hooks Dauss	Pitcher	1912	1926
Harry Heilmann	Outfielder	1914	1929
Frank Navin	Owner,Executive	1903	1935
Mickey Cochrane	Catcher, Manager	1934	1938
Charlie Gehringer	Second baseman	1924	1942
School Boy Rowe	Pitcher	1933	1942
Rudy York	First baseman	1934	1945
Hank Greenberg	First baseman	1930	1946
Tommy Bridges	Pitcher	1930	1946
Wish Egan	Scout	1907	1951
Dizzy Trout	Pitcher	1932	1952
George Kell	Third baseman	1946	1952
Walter Briggs, Sr.	Owner, Executive	1920	1952
Ty Tyson	Broadcaster	1927	1952
Hal Newhouser	Pitcher	1939	1953
Fred Hutchinson	Pitcher	1939	1953
Virgil Trucks	Pitcher	1941	1956
Ray Boone	Third baseman	1953	1958
Harvey Kuenn	Shortstop	1952	1959
Jim Bunning	Pitcher	1955	1963
Vic Wertz	Outfielder	1947	1963
Rocky Colavito	Outfielder	1960	1963
Frank Lary	Pitcher	1954	1964
Denny McLain	Pitcher	1963	1970
Dick McAuliffe	Second baseman	1960	1973
Willie Horton	Outfielder	1963	1973
Al Kaline	Outfielder	1953	1974
Norm Cash	First baseman	1960	1974
Jim Northrup	Outfielder	1964	1974
Mickey Lolich	Pitcher	1963	1975
Bill Freehan	Catcher	1961	1976
John Hiller	Pitcher	1965	1980
John Fetzer	Owner, Executive	1956	1983
Lance Parrish	Catcher	1977	1986
Willie Hernandez	Pitcher	1984	1989
Jack Morris	Pitcher	1977	1990
Chet Lemon	Outfielder	1982	1990
Jim Campbell	GM, Executive	1962	1990
Paul Carey	Broadcaster	1973	1991
Lou Whitaker	Second baseman	1977	1995
Kirk Gibson	Outfielder	1979	1995
Sparky Anderson	Manager	1979	1995
Alan Trammell	Shortstop	1977	1996
Cecil Fielder	First baseman	1990	1996
Travis Fryman	Third baseman	1990	1997
Ernie Harwell	Broadcaster	1960	2002
Turkey Stearnes*	Outfielder	1923	1931
Edgar Wesley*	First baseman	1920	1927
Andy Cooper*	Pitcher	1920	1930
Sam Thompson#	Outfielder	1885	1888
Dan Brouthers#	First baseman	1886	1888
Charlie Bennett#	Catcher	1881	1888
Billy Rogell	Shortstop	1930	1939
Harry Coveleski	Pitcher	1914	1918
Tony Phillips	Infielder/Outfielder	1990	1994
Mike Henneman	Pitcher	1987	1995
Bobby Higginson	Outfielder	1995	2005

* Detroit Stars
# Detroit Wolverines