Miguel Tejada to the Astros

Miguel Tejada was traded from the Baltimore Orioles to the Houston Astros for outfielder Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate, and third-base prospect Michael Costanzo.

This is a terrible trade for the Astros. Most people will analyze this by looking at the prospects that Houston gave up. (It doesn't look like there are any blue-chippers, but some useful parts and a couple of lottery tickets). After all, we don't know much about these players, and Miguel Tejada is a known commodity. But is he really? Sure, he's a 4 time All-Star shortstop and former American League MVP. Sure, he has a .287 career batting average and 6 seasons of driving in over 100 runs. But is that really the player that the Astros are getting? They certainly are banking on it, because the price to acquire him was fairly substantial.

A closer look at Miguel Tejada reveals a player in steep decline, both offensively and defensively. Since 2004, when Tejada hit .311 with 34 HR and drove in an eye-popping 150 runs, his power numbers have dropped precipitously. Tejada's HR have dropped from 34 to 26 to 24 to just 18 last year. His slugging percentage has dropped from .534 in 2004 to .515 to .498, to just .442 last year, which was good for 9th among MLB shortstops, just ahead of Jack Wilson of the Pirates (.440) and Brendan Harris of the Devil Rays (.434), neither of whom is known for his thunderous bat. What is strange about Tejada's vanishing power is that his batting average and on-base percentage have remained fairly consistent throughout this rather startling power loss. We can certainly speculate as to the reasons for the loss of power, and perhaps some light will be shed on this when the Mitchell report is released in a couple of hours.

But Tejada's decline is not only reflected in his offensive numbers. His defense has declined as well. In 2004, Tejada's range factor (a statistic invented by Bill James to reflect how many plays the player successfully makes per 9 innings) was 5.00, tops among all MLB shortstops. In 2005, that dropped to 4.72, good for 8th among shortstops. In 2006, that dropped further to 4.56, good for 9th. In 2007, his range factor dropped to an ugly 4.27, good for 18th among shortstops, just behind Carlos Guillen (4.29), whose range is so bad that the Tigers plan to move him to first base. What this means essentially is that Tejada can't get to as many balls as he used to. With the defensively challenged Ty Wigginton now at third base for the Astros, that's a pretty brutal left side of the infield for Houston.

I have to score this as a solid trade for the O's. They badly need to overhaul that team to compete in the AL East. Trading a 31 year old shortstop (although many speculate he is at least a year or 2 older than that) with a sizeable contract for 5 players seems like a pretty good start. And perhaps they just beat the clock before his value declined further with the release of the Mitchell report.