a player like Miggy, with the kind of contract he has, is probably worth either one high level prospect or a couple lower level guys, I’d think…

But I think we’d probably look more towards pitching prospects than we would to a replacement.

We have two near ready prospects in Maysonet and Manzella (bat-less, but good enough glove in Manzella’s case), plus Sutton wouldn’t be the worst I SS I’d imagine and he looks ready for some MLB action.

However, I’m not Ed Wade and I can almost guarantee that we won’t be trading Tejada, which is somewhat unfortunate. The fans like him, the club house likes him, and our front office believes, and my own research into finds in support, that Tejada will be more effective with his bat if he’s given more off-days. Plus, Drayton isn’t the kinda guy to eat contract to get better prospects, which would be the only benefit of trading Tejada if we did it. Otherwise, we can just wait to collect our Type A compensation pick and scrape buy in our current franchise model of just being good enough to fill the seats without ever contemplating rebuilding.

I think the Astros would do it if the buying team would pay his contract and give up a couple of useful young players. However, I don’t think Tejada’s contract will attract many takers in this market. It’s not that Tejada doesn’t have value. His defense, in my estimation, was excellent last year. His RZR was the highest among NL shortstops, and he surprised me in the field. The guy has a great arm. His offense tailed off pretty significantly but I think there is a better than 50-50 chance he posts a .780-.790 OPS in the upcoming year. The problem is that his salary is $13 million. Because Wade is still tryng to put together a contending club, I don’t think he is willing to just engage in a salary dump.

…Tejada is pretty decent for a shortstop, but definitely not worth $13 million.

But now I’m starting to question how accurate this statement is. According to fangraphs.com, the market rate for one win above a replacement player (WAR) in 2008 was $4.5 million. So to be worth $13 mill, Tejada would have to be worth roughly 2.9 WAR.

Fangraphs puts him at 2.6 WAR, which would translate to a value of $11.7 million, which would mean we overpaid, but not by much (in baseball salary terms).

Our recent community projection project had him at 3 WAR, a value of $13.5 million.

So maybe his performance is in line with his salary. Of course, $13 mil is a lot of money, especially in a down economy, so this calculation could change in the future (perhaps just in time for us to re-sign him).

I think Nate is pretty spot on with his value assessment. If the A’s ate all of Tejada and couldn’t ditch Crosby they would offer very little value, probably only 1-2 players we didn’t perceive to be worth anything. For $8 million, you definitely get a legit (B-/C+) prospect.

I’m curious, last year I watched a lot of Tejada, I remember his amazing start and then he really tanked. I was wondering if any Astros fans had an explanation for this sudden drastic collapse?

I seriously doubt he will OPS near .800 next year, as much as I hope he does.

unless he clears enough net money from the payroll to sign a good free agent pitcher. ..because I think that would be his motivation. Wade is hot for Wolf, and he may cost $8 or $9 million, and I think he would view a Tejada trade as a means of accomplishing that. I just don’t see how he would make it work. The $5 million price tag for Crosby, for example, would pretty much require that the A’s pay the full Tejada salary in order to clear enough payroll. If Crosby isn’t included, then Wade has to figure in the cost of acquiring a shortstop to replace Tejada. And, frankly, I would probably rather have Tejada than Wolf, if the only added player is Crosby.