Jose de Jesus Ortiz, quite possibly the only chron writer who doesn’t make me physically ill (and I rather enjoy him, actually), reports today that Miguel Tejada, that beacon of righteousness, is a big fat liar. OK, perhaps I’m being harsh (duh!). I do agree with Ortiz’ blog-based sentiment that, perhaps, lying wasn’t such a bad thing. And, all of his legal documents show his correct age. However, this should have all been cleared up many years ago, at least by the Age-Gate controversy, but it wasn’t.

In one of my first posts on this nascent blog, I expressed doubt about Tejada’s age. Doubts as to Tejada’s age have been around for several years. Considering the normal peak for hitters is between 26-30 years old, adding two years to his age makes his career path follow historical patterns more closely.

So what? Blah blah blah, bfd, you calloused old under-sexed alcoholic bitter old MF, what does this mean to me?

To put it in perspective, instead of having him tied up over his age 32 and 33 seasons, it’s now his 34 and 35 seasons. And, now that we are in the post-roid era, we’ll have a more normal player production curve. Offensively, we know that players have a tendency to tail off after their age 32 season.

Last year was Tejada’s lowest OPS since his 2001 season, but he also showed a considerable power drop-off. Adding two years means that this is more likely a trend - the declining numbers - than it was a statistical variance.

Finally, let me add that Ed Wade deserves even more scrutiny after this deal. Pulling the trigger the day before the Mitchell Report, and then likely knowing Tejada’s correct age, is poor management. You can try to convince me otherwise, but good luck. It was this deal that soured me on the Stros’ hopes for the season, and now I’m closer to flat-out pissed.

————————

In today’s action, the Astros staff gave up four HRs in an ugly effort today. Miggy celebrated his pair of birthday’s today by homering, as well. I wonder if he gets two cakes?

Wednesday nights are tough for me - it’s an important family night - so I didn’t get to see the game yesterday. But how nice was it to see some goose eggs on Roy’s linescore? The Phillies, even without Rollins, are a solid offensive squad. Yesterday’s outing was a boost for me (and, you know, it’s really all about me).

Edit: Nate Silver re-ran Tejada’s PECOTA projections after adding on two years (sub required).  The take away is that there is not a huge difference in his 2008 numbers - though it’s not statistically insignificant, but the new age lowers his overall value 40% from here on out.  That’s the performance curve drop-off I talk about above.