Monday, December 31, 2012

Tejada Returns to AL With Royals



After sitting out the 2012 season, 38-year old Miguel Tejada has decided to try another comeback and has reportedly signed a deal with the Kansas City Royals.

Tejada says he will earn $1.1MM with the change to win another $400K with incentives. The native of the Dominican Republic played in 91 games in the 2011 season for the San Francisco Giants, but was released in September aftering compiling a .596 OPS. Tejada signed a minor league deal with the Baltimore Orioles this past May and hoped to play with the them at the big league level for the third time in his career. But after 36 games in the minors, Tejada had no home runs, 18 RBI, and hit just .259. The Orioles released him in late June.

Tejada won the American League MVP Award while a member of the Oakland A's in 2002. He hit 34 HR, drove in 131 runs, scored 108, and batted .308 while playing in all 162 regular season games. Tejada drove in 100 runs or better in five straight seasons between Oakland and Baltimore. He finished two RBI shy of 100 in 2005 or the streak would have been seven straight seasons.

The reputation of the shortstop/third baseman took a hit in 2009 when he admitted to lying to Congress about HGH and steroid use. Tejada had been mentioned in the Mitchell Report and was named as a suspect steroid user  by Jose Canseco in his 2005 book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big".

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