Just out of sniffin' range of the gunsmoke from the A-Rod/Nomar sweepstakes and neighborhood firing line, Miguel Tejada hunkers down and waits.
Waits for what?
Well, for stupid money, of course.
In player/agent parlance, "stupid money" is no pejorative. Rather, it represents the holy grail of contractual offers, a rarefied and altogether celebrated destination. What happens when a proven veteran falls into the stupid-money category is all good -- for the player, that is.
Stupid money occurs, quite simply, when a franchise decides to pay too much on purpose. To pay more than a player is "worth." To pay more than a player is being offered by anyone else in any conversation configuration you'd care to name, occasionally by multiples of ten, in order to secure his services. The money is stupid in the sense that you can't count it all or spend it all or even really comprehend it. It's Monopoly money, only it cashes.
Such a franchise engaged in such a process, often as not, is desperate either to improve its sagging field product immediately or to push paying fannies into the seats at a rate that will at least hold the advertisers' attentions through the next sales campaign. A couple of years ago, Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks fell squarely into both categories, and thus offered a $252 million guaranteed contract to a single player.
Alex Rodriguez. Stupid money.
And before we leave the subject: Manny Ramirez. Stupid money.
Kevin Brown. You get the picture.
And now, perhaps, it is Tejada's turn. Or, as Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch said the other day when asked whether he likely would have to overpay to attract a couple of front-line stars, "Yes, I will. It's unfortunate, but that's what happens."
It is what happens when you've just gone 43-119 and yet have designs on a better place in the baseball world. It is what happens when you have publicly identified Tejada as a player you'd love to have. It is certainly what happens when you find yourself attracted to a prime-of-his-career shortstop, one year removed from the American League MVP award, who could anchor the renaissance of your franchise, should one somehow spontaneously occur over the next decade.
Miguel Tejada, that is, might get a couple of very nice offers on the free-agent market this winter. There might be only one place, however, that decides to get stupid.
Tejada's situation is almost lost amidst the shouting over the A-Rod/Ramirez talks ongoing between Texas and Boston, the Garciaparra trade that would have to occur in order for Rodriguez to move to Boston, and the Mets' signing of Kaz Matsui. There's already a lot of shortstop money moving around the country -- so much so, in fact, that Oakland's offer of arbitration to Tejada over the weekend didn't have to be 100 percent about the compensatory draft picks the A's would receive if he signs elsewhere. Even if it's a long shot, it is still possible that Tejada would look around the atrophied shortstop market, turn up his nose at the available offers and take a fat one-year deal to remain in Oakland, hitting free agency again next winter.
But that, of course, doesn't take into account stupid money. It takes into account the more sober offers, like Seattle's reported three-year deal at between $24 million and $25 million total. That's an annual raise over the $5.1 million Tejada made with the A's last season, but insane it ain't.
Enter Detroit (and, at some point, perhaps even Baltimore). The Tigers have a roster full of kids who don't make a lot, and thus, even while hewing to a bottom-line of something like $60 million in team payroll, they've got the wiggle room to more than double Tejada's current salary.
What Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski and owner Ilitch get out of the deal is obvious enough: A very good shortstop with excellent power; a player optimistic and sunny by nature; and a potential lure for customers who otherwise just can't bring themselves to walk into Comerica Park and see that Tigers team. It isn't a full solution -- "We're not one player away from winning," Dombrowski says, acknowledging that Ilitch would like to see at least two major off-season acquisitions -- but it's a start.
But what about Tejada? What does he get? To answer that question, you have to go back to Alex Rodriguez, a man who left a very competitive roster in Seattle, said he was all about winning, and then took Hicks' stupid money to go to Texas, which promptly fell through the floor of the AL West and never did get back up.
A-Rod got his money and sacrificed title aspirations -- but it wasn't forever, was it? As of this writing, the man appears on the verge of joining a Boston team that is already very good, with designs on great. He'll still collect that whopping salary, only now in the service of a potential winner.
About Tejada and the Tigers, no one can say -- although, make no mistake, we're not talking about A-Rod stupid money here. We're not talking about 10 years, or $25 million per. What we are talking about is a contract well beyond what anyone else on the market might even consider for Tejada, offered by a franchise that has been down so long Miggy looks like up to them, with the chance for Tejada to become part of an organization that since 1989 has launched seven different 90-loss seasons, four of them in the 100-plus range.
It would guarantee Tejada, in other words, nothing but the cash. If he took it, he certainly wouldn't be the first. What can you say? Sometimes, the smart money is on the stupid money.
Mark Kreidler is a columnist with the Sacramento Bee and a regular contributor to ESPN.com