The San Francisco Giants wasted no time in finding a replacement for recently departed shortstop Juan Uribe. ESPN’s Enrique Rojas tweeted that the team signed Miguel Tejada to a one year contract for $6.5 million with $500,000 in performance-based incentives.
While Tejada can be an every day shortstop for the Giants, he is probably a bit of a downgrade from Uribe at this point in his career. Aside from the age difference, Tejada’s power numbrs took a bit of a dive last year, and he represents a bit of a downgrade in the field, at least according to ultimate zone rating.
Given the one year nature of this deal it is clearly a stop-gap measure for now. If minor leaguer Brandon Crawford can make some kind of leap in 2011 maybe he takes over later in the year or it at least buys him a year of seasoning. Mychael Urban had an interesting tweet in which he indicated it wasn’t clear if Tejada would play shortstop or third base. Pablo Sandoval struggled mightily this past season and the team remains concerned about his weight issues. If the team decides to try out Tejada at third, they could still make a move for Jason Bartlett or one of the other options out there. Of course, if Tejada is playing third, that raises the question of what do with the Panda.