Miguel Tejada Jr. looking for fresh start in Pioneer League

COLORADO SPRINGS — Miguel Tejada Jr. stands in the batter’s box at UCHealth Park on a cloudy, chilly Opening Day for the Rocky Mountain Vibes. It’s batting practice, and the 20-year-outfielder’s smooth swing drives the ball deep over the 385-foot mark as his teammates and manager watch.

Tejada Jr. cracks a smile and keep swinging. That’s what this time is all about for the 6-foot-1 son of a former Major League Baseball player (Miguel Tejada) who spent 16 years with six MLB teams. He wants to play baseball and he’s in Colorado Springs to show that he has the skills needed to make an impact at whatever level he is playing.

“It’s everything,” Tejada Jr. says of the game of baseball. “Baseball is my life back home. Baseball is number one so I’m trying to make it.”

Now a part of the Rocky Mountain Vibes in the Pioneer League, Miguel Tejada Jr. is ready to showcase his skills again

After being signed by the Philadelphia Phillies organization to a minor league deal on March 3, 2019, Tejada Jr. got in 46 games that season with Philadelphia’s DSL affiliate, slashing .156/.261/.248 over 141 at-bats.

That, however, would be his last action as a member of the Phillies franchise. COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 minor league season, and Tejada Jr. was released on January 27, 2021.

Now, more than a year later, Tejada Jr. finds himself standing at just under 6,000 feet and ready to get back on the field in the Pioneer League, an official “Partner League” of MLB. With that designation, MLB will “create a procedure for player transfers to MLB organizations,” according to a Pioneer League release. That’s what Tejada Jr. and other players in the 10-team Pioneer League are hoping they can take advantage of in this league stretching throughout the Mountain Time Zone.

“I’m working on everything,” said Tejada Jr., who started in left field and batted sixth for the Vibes on Monday night. “I always work with my dad hard so I can get better every day.

“People think I have to do a lot, but I just have to go out there and play and be myself.”

Tejada Jr. knows the pressure that comes with his last name, but he is also eager to prove he can play on his own merits rather than his family lineage.

“I don’t really think about it,” Tejada Jr. said of his last name. “Of course it’s there, but I really don’t think about it. I love the name that I have but, when I go out there, I just think that I’m a baseball player.”

Francisco Cabrera, the Rocky Mountain manager who will work with Tejada Jr. this season, has MLB experience and is best known for hitting the two-run single that scored David Justice and Sid Bream to send the Atlanta Braves to the 1992 World Series. He likes what he has seen in his first days working with Tejada Jr.

“He could be a prospect. He has some power and can hit the ball on a line drive. He also has a good arm,” Cabrera said. “What I’ve seen of him so far, I think he has a chance to be somebody in the future.”

But that’s the future. For tonight, Miguel Tejada Jr. is just ready for a fresh start as first pitch on the clock ticks down to Opening Day for the Rocky Mountain Vibes.

“Everybody’s excited. I’m just ready to get things started,” Tejada Jr. said.