Miguel Tejada Signs With Baltimore

In December of 2003 Miguel Tejada was one of the biggest prizes on the free agent market and he ended up signing a six-year $72 million deal with the Baltimore Orioles. He would only spend four years with Baltimore before being traded to the Houston Astros for four prospects, but now that Tejada is a free agent once more, it's deja vu all over again.

Tejada has signed with the Orioles again, though this time the deal isn't quite as lucrative. All that's known at this point is that it's a one-year deal, and the details of the contract have not been released. Though it's not likely to be for $12 million like the last one.


The deal is still pending a physical which will take place in the coming days.

Tejada hit .313 with 14 homers and 86 RBI last season, finishing with an OPS of .795. Nice numbers for a 35-year old shortstop, but there is reason for the Orioles to be wary.

While playing at Minute Maid Park in 2009 Tejada hit .343 with 10 homers and an OPS of .879. On the road Miguel's numbers dipped to .283 with four homers and an OPS of .708. Which could be of some concern for Tejada and the Orioles, but how much of one it is, nobody can be sure.

After all, Tejada's new home park, Camden Yards, is just as hitter friendly as Minute Maid, and the wall in left field is a lot lower than the one Tejada had to deal with in Houston.

Tobey Maguire’s career direction? It’s a tangled web

There’s been a lot of speculation about who might replace Tobey Maguire as the new Spider-Man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt seems like a no-brainer). But almost as interesting is what happens to the man who’s been playing him.

After all, Sam Raimi will go back to, one can assume (read: hope), the horror/suspense movies of earlier in his career (the rightly lauded “A Simple Plan” and the underrated “The Gift,” to name two). (At least we’re hoping he does; it’s likely he takes on the bigger-budget video-game adaptation “Warcraft” first.) But Maguire poses a trickier question.

He’s been associated with — and in some ways tethered to — the “Spider-Man” franchise for nearly a decade, and the scrapping of the superhero character opens up a new vein of possibility. The actor recently wrapped production on a dark comedy called “The Details.” And of course he can be seen this awards season in the (tepidly reviewed) war movie “Brothers.” With his “Spider-Man” days over, does he continue in a more specialized direction or go back to the blockbuster?

There’s certainly no shortage of big vehicles he can sign on for. A while back, Sony was working on a sci-fi effects-fest called “Worlds,” based on the art-heavy bestselling book by Alec Gillis, that was being developed with Maguire in mind. And there have been rumors of the sci-fi epic “Robotech” and the Guillermo del Toro-directed “The Hobbit.” Both would create Spidey-level fandom — but, also, Spidey-level time commitments … and not offer nearly as much character nuance.

Several development experts say this is a chance for Maguire to move in a more dramatic direction. One project that’s starting to get momentum: “The Limit,” the story of rival Grand Prix race-car drivers, which is being developed by Sony and Maguire’s own production banner, and also has a nearly completed script. He can also take aim at awards with the civil-rights drama “The Crusaders,” which would pair him with hot writer Danny Strong (”Recount”) as well as the Oscar-nominated Gary Ross.

The actor has also been ramping up his own Maguire Entertainment, which has such movies as the Nicolas Cage thriller “The Hungry Rabbit Jumps” on the brink of production.  In fact, there are plenty of active development projects at his production company. But Maguire has a bit of a DiCaprio-esque reputation: signing on to produce a lot of films as potential starring vehicles but in the end opting not to play in them, So the problem may not be finding the vehicles. It’s deciding whether he wants to drive them.