Beat me to it - Part 2

So what did I miss while hanging out with friends last night? Well, yes - Dancing with the Stars. But I would've rather sat in my bedroom and stared at the wall. Had I been noodling around on the intranets, I might have seen that the Detroit Tigers - our widdle Motor City Kitties - are looking to get into the Miguel Tejada business.

Lee at Tiger Tales and Brian at Beyond Boxscores wrote about this yesterday, while I was either spending time with my new love or trying to lift gargantuan mugs full of Stella Artois. I heard the story on the radio early this morning, while trying to get my eyes to fully open. By the time I got to the SME2000 laptop to read more, Billfer's Detroit Tigers Weblog had already chimed in. They all beat me to it.

The Detroit News' Tom Gage is looking for fire in the smoke of Dave Dombrowski's no-comment stance, which resembles his behavior while the Tigers were after Pudge Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez. Billfer sees smoke, too. Lee speculates - astutely, I think - that Detroit isn't necessarily looking to acquire Tejada, but might be looking to participate in a multi-team deal. And Brian thinks this makes no sense, given the Tigers' cautiousness this offseason.

Me? I'm betting Dombrowski called Baltimore to see what it would take to get Tejada. Even if he anticipated an answer he might not like, why not take a shot? Tejada's a great player, and Dombrowski knows the Tigers currently have young prospects (Verlander, Zumaya, Granderson) highly coveted by other teams, along with a surplus of 1st base-DH players (Pena, Young, Shelton) which might interest the Orioles.

Though Tejada's an exciting, hard-working player whom I'd go to Comerica Park to see, I hope this is nothing more than a rumor. Besides the very real possibility that he would be unhappy with a Tigers team-in-progress, I think giving up the young talent Dombrowski has worked so hard to require might compromise the Tigers' rebuilding efforts. Yes, you develop young players not just to supplement your own team, but to use them in trades for veteran talent. But Detroit isn't quite "there" yet, is it? And do they really want to add another outlandish contract to the payroll?

To me, changing development plans on the fly to acquire a big-money, potentially unhappy player could be the Juan Gonzalez trade all over again. Maybe that's an unfair comparison; Tejada's arguably a better player than Gonzalez (and less of a headcase), and Dombrowski's a better GM than Randy Smith. But I think such a move could have the same destructive effects.

(Photo by Harry How/ Getty Images)