Call me crazy, and people often do, but something occurred to me this weekend.
Some Major League team is going to spend an awful lot of money on Oakland Athletics shortstop and resigning American League MVP Miguel Tejada - but it won't be the A's.
That team's general manager, whomever it may be, could be making the mistake of his career. That GM will be paying Tejada somewhere between $10-15 million next year and probably for many seasons, while that particular team could probably go for Expos outfielder Vladimir Guerrero for about the same pile of cash.
The reason I bring this up is because I've talked to some fans of a certain local Major League team, and those fans indicated they might like to have Tejada next season.
The Oakland Athletics announced during the off-season they would not be re-signing Tejada, and the baseball world - fans, reporters, executives, and the like - collectively dropped their jaws in shock. Everyone who understands the financial state of the cash-strapped A's knew they wouldn't be able to re-sign him, but to not bother trying? Well, that was ludicrous.
Maybe.
I racked my brain since they made the announcement, wondering why they would do such a thing before the season even began and - after looking at Tejada's stats, reading the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis and finally looking at Oakland's minor league stats - it hit me.
Billy Beane, Oakland's GM, doesn't want Tejada next season. Now, I never read or heard Beane actually say that because he probably wouldn't mind keeping Tejada for another year or two at his 2002 salary of $3.6 million, but surely not for three or four times that.
He is the antithesis of the prototype A's player, he swings at everything that is round, white and seamed that comes his way. He doesn't have a remarkably high on-base percentage (.354 in 2002) and was third among the "big four" shortstops in OPS - although Derek Jeter had a down-year in 2002, while Tejada may have had a career year.
He just doesn't deserve to be paid like the other three.
Tejada will probably hit a lot of home runs for his millions, while the Athletics will be just fine paying $200,000 to Freddie Bynum, who is making the Double-A Texas League look like his own personal batting cage.
Now, if you're a GM of any other team outside the Bronx. Do you pay Tejada $10-15 million? I don't.
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Reach the reporter at gregory.salvatore@asu.edu.
