Possible future Hall-of-Famer Miguel Tejada played 91 games in 2011, but yet Topps did not include him in their 2012 base set of 660 cards.
The only 2012 cards in existence for Miguel Tejada are only limited edition signature cards. SEVEN different signature cards. Print runs of: 5, 1, 5, 5, 25, 3, 15. If you are a Miguel Tejada collector, and you want a 2012 card, there only 59 printed cards in existence.
Thankfully Tejada came back in 2013 with the Kansas City Royals. If he didn’t, there would have been no baseball card listing the stats for his final season.
So far this year through 20 at bats in nine games, his average is .368 and OPS of .821. The Royals have him playing first, second, and third base. He’s started 3 times at third, one time at second, one time at first, four games as a pinch hitter. “He’s just a spot starter. he’s there to give the starters a break,” says baseball expert Erik Maldre.
Check out this catch in the championship game of the World Baseball Classic this year:
Here’s Tejada (#4) in the infamous pointing photo when the Dominican Republic won the World Baseball Classic:
In the WBC he batted .316 AVG and .718 OPS.
Miguel Tejada did make it into the 2013 Topps Tribute World Baseball Classic set. However, it costs $50 per pack of five cards. (One autographed card or relic card numbered to 99 or less in every pack.)
The Tejada 2009 World Baseball Classic card is available as a jersey card. In fact, Tejada has 171 jersey cards. What if someone bought a ton of jersey cards and then stitched all the swatches together to make an actual jersey?
According to Baseball Reference the most similar player to Tejada is Ryne Sandberg.
- Ryne Sandberg (868) *
- Ted Simmons (856)
- Adrian Beltre (847)
- Alan Trammell (841)
- Yogi Berra (836) *
- Joe Torre (832)
- Scott Rolen (826)
- Carlton Fisk (826) *
- Joe Cronin (822) *
- Barry Larkin (821) *
* – Signifies Hall of Famer
So is Miguel Tejada a Hall of Famer?
- Black Ink: 13 (Average HOFer ≈ 27)
- Gray Ink: 80 (Average HOFer ≈ 144)
- Hall of Fame Monitor: 148, Likely HOFer ≈ 100
- Hall of Fame Standards: 43, Average HOFer ≈ 50
Interesting to note that Tejada’s errors committed as SS have consistently ranked high.
- 1998 AL 26 (2nd)
- 1999 AL 21 (4th)
- 2000 AL 21 (4th)
- 2001 AL 20 (2nd)
- 2002 AL 19 (2nd)
- 2003 AL 21 (2nd)
- 2004 AL 24 (3rd)
- 2005 AL 22 (5th)
- 2006 AL 19 (3rd)
- 2009 NL 21 (2nd)
- Career 255 (97th)
But his putouts as SS are also quite high.
- 1999 AL 292 (1st)
- 2000 AL 233 (4th)
- 2001 AL 256 (2nd)
- 2002 AL 229 (5th)
- 2003 AL 240 (2nd)
- 2004 AL 263 (2nd)
- 2005 AL 252 (4th)
- 2006 AL 237 (4th)
- 2009 NL 214 (3rd)
- Career 2,891 (51st)
I kinda like Miguel Tejada now.