[Editor's Note: Promoted from the FanPosts. John Kmiecik will be doing this throughout the offseason. You can read his work at 2100 Woodward.]

Magglio Ordoñez takes a swing May 29th at Baltimore (via Keith Allison)

Magglio Ordoñez was, at times, the hottest topic debated among Tigers fans this season coming to a head when his 2010 contract option vested on September 15th. As far as I've been able to tell most Tigers fans have come to terms with Ordoñez being a part of the 2010 Tigers; the roar in June about his poor performance and impending option virtually gone by the time it actually vested.

Ordoñez' first half was uncharacteristic of him; his second half became the Ordoñez we all remember from the 2006 ALCS; watching that clip still makes my arm hair stand on end and bring a tear to my eye. Read on for the full review.

2009 Notes

The big story this season for Ordoñez was his first half slump and the 2010 contract option. Kurt Mensching over at Mack Avenue Tigers was one who was impressed with Ordoñez's late increase in offense; the Detroit News' Lynn Henning saw it as a potential disaster. Intertwined with the contract issue was his benching by Leyland and Ordoñez's agent Scott Boras deciding to speak up when his client wouldn't -- causing Boras to backpedal so fast he may have snapped his knees in the process. Leyland didn't much care for Boras' armchair management and a short while later, Ordoñez was back on the field.

Ordoñez played in career game number 1600 on June 24th in a win against the Chicago Cubs at Comerica Park. He cranked left-handed pitching all season, hitting .352/.413/.524 against them. Perhaps most important for passionate Ordoñez fans was his sudden haircut in late June showing the Ordoñez some fans remembered from his Chicago White Sox days.

OFFENSE

April

It's no secret that Ordoñez's season started off poorly. He could only muster a .241 average and an uncharacteristic .650 OPS, 244 points under his career average. His power was virtually absent, with only 19 hits and two home runs; the other 17 hits were singles while he struck out 15 times for his worst mark of the season. He did draw 11 walks during this span to keep his K/BB ratio at 1.36 and not far worse.

From April 9th to 17th, Ordoñez struck out eight times in seven games for his longest streak of the season. Things didn't get better after this stretch as he grounded into a double play for three consecutive games on the 19th, 20th and 22nd. The final game of this brief streak actually went well for Ordoñez, drawing a bases-loaded walk against Scott Shields of the Angels in the top of the 7th to get the Tigers within one run and an eventual 12-10 win. He went 3 for 5 in that game with no strikeouts. His first home run of the season came in the top of the 9th on the 25th against the Royals, to scoring the final run for a 9-1 victory. His second came two days later against C.C. Sabathia of the Yankees in the bottom of the 6th to send the Tigers to a 4-0 lead, winding up with a 4-2 win.

May

The month of May fared better for Ordoñez, hitting better for average at .315 while his OPS enjoyed a 100-point uptick on the back of seven doubles. Absent was the yard power the Tigers have enjoyed from Ordoñez over the years, never getting beyond second for an extra-base hit this month. His hits brought out only one additional RBI in two more games compared to April and his K/BB ratio dropped a bit to 1.20, walking 10 times to striking out 12.

Starting May 5th and extending to June 13th, Ordoñez managed to get on base for 29 straight games covering 111 at-bats. From the 8th to the 30th this month, Ordoñez had a 16 game hitting streak. The highlight of the month came on May 15th at home against the Oakland Athletics as he went 3 for 3 with two RBI, a walk and two runs. In the bottom of the first, a sharp single through the shortstop Orlando Cabrera allowed Clete Thomas to score on the error. Ordoñez came around to score after Inge was hit by a pitch and Ryan Raburn went yard for a grand slam.

June

June was an eventful month for Ordoñez however, it was not in the fashion the Tigers would have liked. His bat fell off once again, hitting just .232 this month and slugging .297. One of his 5 RBI came on June 5th against the Angels, hitting a line drive off Ervin Santana to push in the Tigers' only run in the bottom of the 9th for a 2-1 loss. On June 12th, Rick Porcello's first big league hit and RBI came against Ian Snell and the Pittsburgh Pirates as Ordoñez came around to score on the grounder through the third base side.

Following a 4-3 loss at St. Louis on the 17th, Jim Leyland announced that Ordoñez would be benched "indefinitely". Ordoñez had been homerless since April 25th, only batting in 22 runs in that same span. For the month of June he played in 13 games hitting .250 with a dismal .292 slugging percentage.

Leyland described benching Ordoñez as a tough decision. 32% of readers here at Bless You Boys felt that the Twins series before the All-Star break would be Ordoñez' last in Detroit; commentary in that thread showed that many of us (myself included) thought Ordoñez' days in Detroit were going to be limited at best. Ordoñez even cut his hair in a bid to regain his hitting prowess.

Once Ordoñez returned to play on June 23rd, the immediate benefit of the benching was difficult to see as he only hit .192/.222/.308 in the final seven games in June. Extend that time to the All-Star Break and his numbers still don't improve much, going .204/.250/.347.

July

Ordoñez numbers saw some improvements in July. His average stayed steady, however he was getting on base slightly better than in June and his slugging improved greatly. His extra base production increased nicely, adding five doubles and two home runs to six singles for a 130 point uptick in slugging to .429. This was still not the Ordoñez most fans think about, but it showed an improvement in the power department. His K/BB ratio stayed the same from June at 1.50 while he only grounded into one double play.

On July 4th against the Twins at The Infernal Hellhole, Ordoñez hit a double in the top of the 2nd only to see nothing come of it. At the top of the 7th with one out, Ordoñez capitalized on singles from Thames and Raburn by going yard to left-center to take the lead 3-2. Unfortunately that was all the offense the Tigers could muster that day, stranding only three runners as the Tigers couldn't figure out Liriano-Guerrier-Nathan in a 4-3 loss.

Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com wrote an article on July 21st raising the same questions from June many people had about Ordoñez, showing that even with the power improvement people were still skeptical of Ordoñez coming around again. Knobler's article reads like a pre-obituary; the quotes gathered for the story seem to be expecting Ordoñez to fade into nothing.

You have to wonder if Ordoñez read the Knobler article on that Tuesday before playing the Seattle Mariners. Garrett Olson allowed Polanco to double-RBI and issued walks to both Cabrera and Thames in the top of the first to load the bases. Ordoñez drove a 2-2 pitch to deep left for a grand slam, launching the Tigers to an early 5-1 lead. He drew a walk from Chris Jakubauskas, Olson's replacement, in the bottom of the second and was scored on a Raburn triple to left.

August

To say Ordoñez simply improved in August is an understatement. His offensive numbers screamed north to .348/.425/.536 for a 116/119/107 point improvement from July. He had 24 hits with three doubles, three triples and two home runs to drive his slugging percentage up. His K/BB ratio dipped under 1.00 for the first time this season, striking out 9 times and walking 11 -- once intentional, his first of the season.

On August 5th, Ordoñez opened up the scoring in the bottom of the 5th with a solo home run off of the Orioles' Jeremy Guthrie at Comerica Park on the way to a 4-2 win. Against Brad Penny and the Boston Red Sox on August 10th, Ordoñez tripled down the right field line and scored Cabrera. He went 3 for 3 with a walk on August 19th against the Mariners, unfortunately scoring no runs in the process for a 3-1 Tigers loss. Ordoñez managed a grounder against David Price on August 29th getting Granderson out on a botched double play, reaching second on an error by Jason Bartlett. Later that game he drove in the only Tigers run, singling to center to score Adam Everett.

September/October

The production from Ordoñez in this span is astounding compared to the rest of his season. Even with his August, until this point he was hitting .275/.348/.390 on the season. In this 28 game stretch he only went hitless in six games and increased his numbers enough for a season total of .310/.376/.428. He singled 34 times, doubled seven and homered twice. Errors helped him reach three times while he grounded into the same amount of double plays. From September 15th to October 6th -- when the Tigers only faced AL Central opponents -- Ordoñez hit .400/.438/.583 to help the Tigers push for game 163 as the Twins got white hot, going 15-4 during the same interval.

On September 6th, Ordoñez singled a 1-2 pitch from Russ Springer to load the bases for Brandon Inge in the top of the 9th with the Tigers down 3-1 against the Tampa Bay Rays. While Raburn pinch ran for him, Inge hit a grand slam to sail the Tigers to their final score of 5-3. 20 days later at The Cell in Chicago, Ordoñez' single to right off Tony Peña contributed to the Tigers' top 7th rally to help score four runs for a 12-5 win.

Against the Twins on September 29th, a double off Brian Duensing scored Everett and Polanco to help the Tigers squeak out an important 6-5 win. The next day Ordoñez helped the Tigers win again, with a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the 5th against Carl Pavano -- an acquisition by the Twins solely to confound the Tigers offense. If we're talking about Ordoñez down the stretch, then we can't ignore the dreaded game 163 on October 6th. With the Tigers down 4-3 at the top of the 8th, Ordoñez wasted no time sending the second pitch from Matt Guerrier into the left field seats to tie the game.

DEFENSE, VALUE AND THOUGHTS

Ordoñez' fielding percentage was acceptable on the season, besting the league average by 5 points. His 1.75 range factor per 9 ranked 32 out of 34 right fielders (min. 500 innings) in the bigs this season, and last in the AL. This explains what most Tigers fans can remember at some point in the season: a slow drive or popup to right that dropped in for an easy base hit while we're left watching Ordoñez almost wander toward the ball.

Ordoñez is 35 years old, it's expected that he'll start to slow down with age. However if you look at his defensive value numbers, he's only worth -0.3 runs in 2009 indicating he is far more average than he has appeared to have been with our tunnel vision. His offensive value numbers are surprising, according to Fangraphs he's worth 11.2 runs above average. Ordoñez was grossly overpaid compared to what his contract is valued at for his 2009 production; he made $18m when he was worth about $9.2m. This low value is due to his poor April through July, a significant bulk of the season.

I hope Ordoñez' extremely hot August-October continues on next season, up toward his career offense of .312/.371/.513 nearly achieved this season. If he can find and hold into his power once again, he may be able to give the Tigers another season of power production. Ideally he would reproduce his career-best 2007 season; in reality I sincerely doubt he can. I would like to see a season similar to 2008, where he kept his offensive numbers well-balanced throughout that season and hit .317 for 103 RBI with 21 home runs.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments! Up next: Bobby Seay.