Sox acquire Mark Teahen, $$$ for Getz/Fields

[League]

oh yeah there are plenty of guys who won it based on name or bat

Gold Gloves seriously are useless. UZR/Fielding Bible are the way to go for defense and Rios has scored very, very high on both. He's an elite defensive outfielder.

[SoxAce]

Teahen would have lead the sox in doubles last year.

 

Supposedly one of the main reasons why KW really liked him. We had the second fewest doubles in the league last year. Beckham, Teahan and hopefully a "back to normal" Rios should help solidlify the XBH with whoever else KW has up his sleeve this offseason. Very athletic players is what we are trying to generate.

[greg775]

You stat junkies ... please analyze Mark Teahen's strikeouts and overall s***ty offensive numbers and tell me he's more than a utility player. Royals fans are sooo glad to get rid of the guy.

I real all these stat analysis of our players ... give me one on Teahen because he is a disaster in terms of production. 50 ribbies in 130 games or something? All those Ks.

Of course the Sox are probably happy to get rid of Fields. Getz is the puzzle. It should have been Fields for Teahen cause they are similarly bad.

Edited November 7, 2009 by greg775

[SoxFan1]

You stat junkies ... please analyze Mark Teahen's strikeouts and overall s***ty offensive numbers and tell me he's more than a utility player. Royals fans are sooo glad to get rid of the guy.

I real all these stat analysis of our players ... give me one on Teahen because he is a disaster in terms of production. 50 ribbies in 130 games or something? All those Ks.

Of course the Sox are probably happy to get rid of Fields. Getz is the puzzle. It should have been Fields for Teahen cause they are similarly bad.

Fields is WAY worse than Teahen. It's not even close really. I get the feeling that you hate this deal for no specific reason at all. Oh, and Teahen had more 2B than Getz/Fields/Alexei combined. I think thats kinda good. Now, like someone previously mentioned, we have 3 guys in Beckham, Rios, and Teahen who are capable of 35+ 2B. Do you not recall the countless times we went through 3-4 game stretches without a single extra-base hit?

 

And he's played for the Royals his entire career, I think that may be one of the reasons he isn't an RBI machine...

[knightni]

1. Beckham 2B

2. Teahen 3B

3. Quentin LF

4. Thome/Flowers DH

5. Konerko 1B

6. Ramirez SS

7. Rios RF

8. Pierzynski C

9. Jor Danks CF

 

 

 

hmmm

[SoxFan1]

Terrible.

Agreed.

[greg775]

I guess I hate the deal because I've lived here and basically heard Royals fans bag on the guy since he started to regress.

I'd love him as a utility player; love him there. I'm worried at him starting at third nonetheless.

 

Some Baseball Digest comments: Please comment on these.

 

What the Sox get with Teahen is an average left-handed bat who can play third base, second base, or right field—although UZR says he can’t exactly play any of those positions well.

 

Teahen’s walk rate has plummeted in the last two years, falling from 9.2 in 2006 and 2007 to 7.4 and 6.6 in 2008 and 2009. As a result, his OBP fell from the .350 range to the .310-.320 range. On top of that, his contact rate has fell along with his walk rate.

 

His current approach at the plate—essentially, one of less patience—is a strong departure from his famed Moneyball days. Some scout quotes on Teahen from the book (page 31): Good approach to hitting. Not a lot of power right now…he takes pitches. Teahen doesn’t project. He’s a corner guy who doesn’t hit a lot of home runs.

Teahen not only is a corner guy who doesn’t hit a lot of home runs, but now, he doesn’t even have a good approach to hitting.

 

Maybe some of that change has been because of poor coaching from the Royals. Or maybe some of that change has been that Teahen got sick of being a corner outfielder who doesn’t hit many home runs.

 

If the Sox can find a way to get Teahen back to his patient days at the plate (i.e. get his walk rate back up), then he at least can be a good OBP guy somewhere in the lineup. If not, though, he’ll become essentially an expensive utility player.

 

Teahen is a better defensive right fielder than Jermaine Dye, but he’s still not above-average. So if Teahen is playing a corner position, he won’t have much power or much defense.

 

A lesser worry for me is that the Sox will move Teahen to third and Gordon Beckham to second. I’d have to hope the Sox know about Teahen’s deficiencies at third and would rather keep Beckham progressing defensively there instead of moving him to second. But that infield shift is not something we can rule out just yet.

 

 

THAT LAST GRAPH IS KEY. Mark is not a good third baseman. That should concern all of us especially with Lexi not yet great at ss.

[SoxFan1]

I guess I hate the deal because I've lived here and basically heard Royals fans bag on the guy since he started to regress.

I'd love him as a utility player; love him there. I'm worried at him starting at third nonetheless.

 

Some Baseball Digest comments: Please comment on these.

 

What the Sox get with Teahen is an average left-handed bat who can play third base, second base, or right field—although UZR says he can’t exactly play any of those positions well.

 

Teahen’s walk rate has plummeted in the last two years, falling from 9.2 in 2006 and 2007 to 7.4 and 6.6 in 2008 and 2009. As a result, his OBP fell from the .350 range to the .310-.320 range. On top of that, his contact rate has fell along with his walk rate.

 

His current approach at the plate—essentially, one of less patience—is a strong departure from his famed Moneyball days. Some scout quotes on Teahen from the book (page 31): Good approach to hitting. Not a lot of power right now…he takes pitches. Teahen doesn’t project. He’s a corner guy who doesn’t hit a lot of home runs.

Teahen not only is a corner guy who doesn’t hit a lot of home runs, but now, he doesn’t even have a good approach to hitting.

 

Maybe some of that change has been because of poor coaching from the Royals. Or maybe some of that change has been that Teahen got sick of being a corner outfielder who doesn’t hit many home runs.

 

If the Sox can find a way to get Teahen back to his patient days at the plate (i.e. get his walk rate back up), then he at least can be a good OBP guy somewhere in the lineup. If not, though, he’ll become essentially an expensive utility player.

 

Teahen is a better defensive right fielder than Jermaine Dye, but he’s still not above-average. So if Teahen is playing a corner position, he won’t have much power or much defense.

 

A lesser worry for me is that the Sox will move Teahen to third and Gordon Beckham to second. I’d have to hope the Sox know about Teahen’s deficiencies at third and would rather keep Beckham progressing defensively there instead of moving him to second. But that infield shift is not something we can rule out just yet.

 

 

THAT LAST GRAPH IS KEY. Mark is not a good third baseman. That should concern all of us especially with Lexi not yet great at ss.

It's November 6th.

 

November 7th in the Eastern Time Zone.

[SoxFan562004]

Gold Glove recenty has been based on name value, All Star and MVP are based on production. You arent going to get an all star start or an MVP trophy if you arent one of if not the best at your position. Plenty of gold gloves are awarded every year to players based on their name(cough*jeter*cough) when there are plenty of players out there that are heads and tails better.

yes, Jeter's and Palmerio's Gold Gloves made them a joke in my book (and by Palmerio's I mean the one where he played something like 17 games at 1b and won it)

Edited November 7, 2009 by SoxFan562004

[chw42]

You stat junkies ... please analyze Mark Teahen's strikeouts and overall s***ty offensive numbers and tell me he's more than a utility player. Royals fans are sooo glad to get rid of the guy.

I real all these stat analysis of our players ... give me one on Teahen because he is a disaster in terms of production. 50 ribbies in 130 games or something? All those Ks.

Of course the Sox are probably happy to get rid of Fields. Getz is the puzzle. It should have been Fields for Teahen cause they are similarly bad.

 

When you say Royals fans are glad he's gone, should it really matter? I mean, they're Royals fans. There's not too many of them and I really doubt most of them care since they've been so bad for the past decade and a half. Saying they hate Mark Teahen doesn't validate anything. A lot of us here hate Alexei Ramirez, does that mean Alexei Ramirez is a bad player? Not necessarily.

 

As far as Teahen's offensive abilities...

 

Well, here's what Teahen is from a Sabermetric point of view: A very average hitter in terms of line drives. He's around the league average in that. However, the biggest problem with him is the amount of ground balls he hits, nearly 50% of his balls in play are hit on the ground throughout his career. Unless you're Juan Pierre, that's a very bad thing. Teahen also strikes out more than the average hitter, which doesn't make too much sense due to the fact that he's a contact hitter. Another thing to look at is Teahen's protection. Playing on the Royals definitely doesn't help you get better pitches to hit. That might be a reason why he doesn't drive in many runs. Not that RBI matters in player evaluation. Teahen's low walk rate is also incredibly uncharacteristic of a guy drafted by Billy Beane. Thus, Teahen is incredibly prone to cold streaks since he's a ground ball hitter that is prone to strikeouts and does not walk enough. Since Teahen hits the ball on the ground so much, his fly ball rate takes a huge tumble, suggesting why he's had such low home run totals even though he was projected as a good power hitter out of the draft.

 

Part of the reason for this might be because of Kaufman Stadium, which has taken a lot of power away from guys like Jose Guillen, Mike Sweeney, and etc. over the years because of its large dimensions. This can also suggest that Teahen deliberately stopped swinging for the fences due to Kaufman, meaning more line drives instead of deep fly balls on the warning track. However, it should be noted that he had a high fly ball rate in 2006 (5% higher than his career norm), where he put up a .500 SLG%. His line drive rate that year was also extremely low while he posted his career high in average. In other words, 06 was pretty much a fluke in terms of the numbers he put up (although his BABIP wasn't that much higher than his career average). However, that does not invalidate the fact that when he hit more fly balls, the results were better.

 

How does this benefit the White Sox and Teahen? For beginners, Teahen had a .500 SLG% at the Cell in around 150 plate appearances. Not a big enough sample size to gauge anything drastic, but it's definitely a start. Here's the kicker: he has 8 home runs in those 150 plate appearances. What's even better is that he only has 28 home runs at Kaufman Stadium in 1366 plate appearances. Talk about power sap! To simplify things, if we give Teahen 600 plate appearances this year, he'd hit somewhere near 25-30 home runs, 16 at U.S. Cellular Field alone. Of course, it is completely unrealistic to think that way, but the fact that Teahen has more than 1/4 the amount of home runs at the Cell in comparison to his home runs at Kaufman Stadium in a sample size ten times smaller is just mind boggling.

 

We can pretty much say that Kaufman held Teahen back. Even if it didn't, the Cell is definitely a much better home for him. With Greg Walker telling him that he should try to hit more home runs, Teahen will definitely swing for fly balls more often this year. Two things can come out of this: more home runs and more strikeouts. Teahen's power numbers will go up by a lot, those doubles he hit at Kaufman might turn into home runs at U.S. Cellular Field. But since he's most likely going to change his approach to be more of a fly ball hitter, his average and OBP will most likely decrease while his K rate goes up. However, as mentioned before, when he did swing for the sky back in 2006, he had a career year where he posted an all-star caliber OPS.

 

In my opinion, Teahen is slated for a mediocre year in terms of average and OBP. He will most likely hit anywhere from .250-.260 with a .310-.320 OBP. However, his SLG should be around .470-.480, giving him an OPS of about .780-.800, which translates to an OPS+ of around 105 and a wOBA of .340. In other words, he'd be a slightly above average hitter with good power. As a 3B, that's all you can really ask of him. In the end, Teahen should be around a 1.5-2 win player given his bad defense.

Edited November 7, 2009 by chw42

[bighurt4life]

Teahen is just keeping the spot warm for either Viciedo or Morel in '10. Probably Morel, don't think that Dayan is a real 3B.

[greg775]

Thanks chw42, I read every word. I can't say your piece encouraged me much, especially your last sentence about the bad defense. Nice writeup though. Good sabermetric analysis.

[DBAHO]

Luckily, that won't happen.

KW and Ozzie should be crucified if Alex Rios is our opening day right fielder.

 

Maybe in a few years you're forced to move him there, but right now absolutely not.

[Dick Allen]

When you say Royals fans are glad he's gone, should it really matter? I mean, they're Royals fans. There's not too many of them and I really doubt most of them care since they've been so bad for the past decade and a half. Saying they hate Mark Teahen doesn't validate anything. A lot of us here hate Alexei Ramirez, does that mean Alexei Ramirez is a bad player? Not necessarily.

 

As far as Teahen's offensive abilities...

 

Well, here's what Teahen is from a Sabermetric point of view: A very average hitter in terms of line drives. He's around the league average in that. However, the biggest problem with him is the amount of ground balls he hits, nearly 50% of his balls in play are hit on the ground throughout his career. Unless you're Juan Pierre, that's a very bad thing. Teahen also strikes out more than the average hitter, which doesn't make too much sense due to the fact that he's a contact hitter. Another thing to look at is Teahen's protection. Playing on the Royals definitely doesn't help you get better pitches to hit. That might be a reason why he doesn't drive in many runs. Not that RBI matters in player evaluation. Teahen's low walk rate is also incredibly uncharacteristic of a guy drafted by Billy Beane. Thus, Teahen is incredibly prone to cold streaks since he's a ground ball hitter that is prone to strikeouts and does not walk enough. Since Teahen hits the ball on the ground so much, his fly ball rate takes a huge tumble, suggesting why he's had such low home run totals even though he was projected as a good power hitter out of the draft.

 

Part of the reason for this might be because of Kaufman Stadium, which has taken a lot of power away from guys like Jose Guillen, Mike Sweeney, and etc. over the years because of its large dimensions. This can also suggest that Teahen deliberately stopped swinging for the fences due to Kaufman, meaning more line drives instead of deep fly balls on the warning track. However, it should be noted that he had a high fly ball rate in 2006 (5% higher than his career norm), where he put up a .500 SLG%. His line drive rate that year was also extremely low while he posted his career high in average. In other words, 06 was pretty much a fluke in terms of the numbers he put up (although his BABIP wasn't that much higher than his career average). However, that does not invalidate the fact that when he hit more fly balls, the results were better.

 

How does this benefit the White Sox and Teahen? For beginners, Teahen had a .500 SLG% at the Cell in around 150 plate appearances. Not a big enough sample size to gauge anything drastic, but it's definitely a start. Here's the kicker: he has 8 home runs in those 150 plate appearances. What's even better is that he only has 28 home runs at Kaufman Stadium in 1366 plate appearances. Talk about power sap! To simplify things, if we give Teahen 600 plate appearances this year, he'd hit somewhere near 25-30 home runs, 16 at U.S. Cellular Field alone. Of course, it is completely unrealistic to think that way, but the fact that Teahen has more than 1/4 the amount of home runs at the Cell in comparison to his home runs at Kaufman Stadium in a sample size ten times smaller is just mind boggling.

 

We can pretty much say that Kaufman held Teahen back. Even if it didn't, the Cell is definitely a much better home for him. With Greg Walker telling him that he should try to hit more home runs, Teahen will definitely swing for fly balls more often this year. Two things can come out of this: more home runs and more strikeouts. Teahen's power numbers will go up by a lot, those doubles he hit at Kaufman might turn into home runs at U.S. Cellular Field. But since he's most likely going to change his approach to be more of a fly ball hitter, his average and OBP will most likely decrease while his K rate goes up. However, as mentioned before, when he did swing for the sky back in 2006, he had a career year where he posted an all-star caliber OPS.

 

In my opinion, Teahen is slated for a mediocre year in terms of average and OBP. He will most likely hit anywhere from .250-.260 with a .310-.320 OBP. However, his SLG should be around .470-.480, giving him an OPS of about .780-.800, which translates to an OPS+ of around 105 and a wOBA of .340. In other words, he'd be a slightly above average hitter with good power. As a 3B, that's all you can really ask of him. In the end, Teahen should be around a 1.5-2 win player given his bad defense.

 

Counting on USCF to be the savior and make this guy go from below average to anything close to a force, while its possible, is probably really reaching. It was only 2 years ago when the Sox got Nick Swisher out of Oakland into USCF. A lot of "experts" and I'm not digging at people here, I'm talking about guys who get paid a lot of money to talk about baseball, were predicting 40 homers, .400+ OBP, .900 + OPS. Teahen is really liked by a lot of scouts, and of course Hawk has been an admirer for a few years, although even he seemed to sour on him a little bit this past year. He could break out, and maybe playing one position will help him, but on the other hand he also was playing in total obscurity in KC and their meaningless games began rather early. How will he handle a little more scrutiny? I think there's a better chance he is what he is, but hold out the 2% hope he has a Ryan Ludwick breakout. The K's concern me, a lot. I know a lot of people think a strikeout is no different than any other out, but a strikeout doesn't get a guy at third home with one out. A strikeout doesn't make a SS boot a ball, a strikeout doesn't advance a runner especially considering the White Sox really don't have many basestealers on the roster. Obviously that can change, this isn't the big splash I was hoping for. I still think they better do something about the bullpen.

[beck72]

I know Kenny is talking up Teahen at 3b. But his best fielding year was in 2007 in RF. He had 17 assists in 137 games, and had a UZR of 6.8.

[dyuen]

1. Beckham 2B

2. Teahen 3B

3. Quentin LF

4. Thome/Flowers DH

5. Konerko 1B

6. Ramirez SS

7. Rios RF

8. Pierzynski C

9. Jor Danks CF

 

 

 

hmmm

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm? that lineup sucks

[Dick Allen]

I know Kenny is talking up Teahen at 3b. But his best fielding year was in 2007 in RF. He had 17 assists in 137 games, and had a UZR of 6.8.

Personally, I would take Uribe over Teahen any day of the week.

[southsider2k5]

Personally, I would take Uribe over Teahen any day of the week.

 

It would depend on the rest of the line up. Right now, I would value Uribe's D, but with the guys that are leaving, I am worried about scoring runs next year, at this point. I am sure that changes though.

[Ozzie Ball]

It would depend on the rest of the line up. Right now, I would value Uribe's D, but with the guys that are leaving, I am worried about scoring runs next year, at this point. I am sure that changes though.

Scoring runs and preventing runs are the same thing though, surely. If player A has a +3 run bat and +7 run glove, is that any different from player B with a -8 run glove and +18 run bat?

[southsider2k5]

Scoring runs and preventing runs are the same thing though, surely. If player A has a +3 run bat and +7 run glove, is that any different from player B with a -8 run glove and +18 run bat?

 

Depends on the pitching staff too.

[Ozzie Ball]

Depends on the pitching staff too.

It really doesn't.

[chw42]

Counting on USCF to be the savior and make this guy go from below average to anything close to a force, while its possible, is probably really reaching. It was only 2 years ago when the Sox got Nick Swisher out of Oakland into USCF. A lot of "experts" and I'm not digging at people here, I'm talking about guys who get paid a lot of money to talk about baseball, were predicting 40 homers, .400+ OBP, .900 + OPS. Teahen is really liked by a lot of scouts, and of course Hawk has been an admirer for a few years, although even he seemed to sour on him a little bit this past year. He could break out, and maybe playing one position will help him, but on the other hand he also was playing in total obscurity in KC and their meaningless games began rather early. How will he handle a little more scrutiny? I think there's a better chance he is what he is, but hold out the 2% hope he has a Ryan Ludwick breakout. The K's concern me, a lot. I know a lot of people think a strikeout is no different than any other out, but a strikeout doesn't get a guy at third home with one out. A strikeout doesn't make a SS boot a ball, a strikeout doesn't advance a runner especially considering the White Sox really don't have many basestealers on the roster. Obviously that can change, this isn't the big splash I was hoping for. I still think they better do something about the bullpen.

 

Honestly, I saw that prediction very little back in the 08 off-season. I was expecting at least 30 homers from Swisher and fantasy predictions had him at around 32 from what I remember. I didn't look up his PECTOA projections that year. The problem with U.S. Cellular Field is that it changes the mindset of some hitters. Since it's known as a hitter's park and our club has a history of swinging for the long ball, it could alter a hitter's approach for the worse. This could be the case for Teahen, although the one year he did hit very well, he hit more fly balls, which is the only tell tale sign that this move might be a good one for him. However, in the back of my mind, I also think that he might be a complete bust if he changes his approach for obvious reasons.

 

Oh and Teahen is far from a big splash. I think Kenny has at least one big signing and trade left in him.

Edited November 7, 2009 by chw42

[southsider2k5]

It really doesn't.

 

It really does. If you have a bad fielding infield, you really don't want a team full of groundball pitchers. That would only serve to exacerbate the problem.

[ThunderBolt]

I was expecting at least 30 homers from Swisher and fantasy predictions had him at around 32 from what I remember.

I’d point out that Swisher still hit 24 homeruns in limited AB’s (for him) in a year that proved to be a statistical aberration the very next year after, but I don’t want to be caught in the s*** storm this argument would inevitably create. Instead, I’ll not my head, and move on.

[iamshack]

I’d point out that Swisher still hit 24 homeruns in limited AB’s (for him) in a year that proved to be a statistical aberration the very next year after, but I don’t want to be caught in the s*** storm this argument would inevitably create. Instead, I’ll not my head, and move on.

Yeah, I think it's kind of unfair to judge Swish's numbers here. We were jacking him around, putting him in defensive positions he wasn't accustomed to, asking him to bat leadoff, etc.

 

Let's face it, we were asking him to do a lot of things and he didn't perform particularly well doing them, and then it got kind of ugly. Nothing to do but move on.

 

I do miss the dirty 30 thing though...