Detroit Tigers: 1990-1999 All-Decade Team
By Matt Snyder
Shortstop: Alan Trammell
Like Whitaker, Alan Trammell is most associated with the dominant Tigers clubs of the mid-1980s, but his career extended until the 1996 season. He spent many of his 1990s years battling injury and age-related decline, but he managed an above-average 103 OPS+ for the decade.
His final All-Star appearance came in 1990 when he hit .304/.377/.449 in 146 games. He also took home the American League Silver Slugger award at the shortstop position that season and finished in the top-20 of MVP balloting.
He wouldn’t appear in more than 115 games after the 1990 season, but he was able to put everything back together in 1993 for one final vintage season. That year he hit .329/.388/.496 in 447 plate appearances.
His days of perennial MVP contention were behind him, but his 12.3 WAR over parts of seven seasons in the 1990s still made him one of the six most valuable Tigers players of the entire decade.
Like Whitaker, Trammell fell short of Hall of Fame induction in his time on the BBWAA ballot. His final year of eligibility was 2016 when he peaked at 40.9% of the vote, well short of the 75% threshold. It’s likely that he (and Whitaker) will eventually be inducted through one of the various era-specific committees, but they’ll have to continue waiting for now.