SB Nation - Mark Teahen

Quick Takes On Smaller Deals: Teahen, Gload, Crosby

Satchel Price — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:44:33 -0000

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

While the baseball world reacts to the Granderson/Jackson/Scherzer blockbuster from yesterday, a few smaller deals haven't been discussed much on MLBDD. I'll get the post updated each time I add another quick take. Let's dig into them here:

Mark Teahen Signs Three-Year Extension With White Sox

Yesterday, the White Sox extended Teahen through his final two arbitration years and his first year of free agency. The deal pays the 28-year-old former Royal $3.75M in 2010, $4.75M in 2011, and $5.5M in 2012, for a total of $14M guaranteed. While the deal gets Teahen for cheaper than he would've gone going year-to-year, he likely would've gotten around $16-18M had the White Sox let that happen, barring a big breakout similar to what he did in 2006.

I'm not really sure why the White Sox felt the need to guarantee the money for Teahen, he's a below-average defender at third base, where the Sox plan on using him at least in 2010, and he's essentially a league-average bat, so it seems like an odd move considering his track record of disappointment. The White Sox might expect him to breakout with a move to the Cell, but giving up Chris Getz, Josh Fields and $13M (they got $1M from Kansas City) for three years of Mark Teahen seems like a really high price.

Ross Gload Signs Two-Year Deal With Phillies

After receiving interest from every team in the NL East except for the Mets, Gload signed with the Phillies to essentially take Matt Stairs' spot on their roster. Gload is capable of playing first base and both of the outfield corners, and he posted a .261/.329/.400 line in 2009 with the Marlins, leading the league in pinch hits and posting a career high walk rate. Gload has always been more of a contact hitter, his career ISO is just .125, and he never posted a walk rate higher than 5.6% from 2005 to 2008. Presumably, the money is very minmal, but I do find it odd that someone as mediocre and fungible as Gload managed to land a multi-year deal.

Bobby Crosby On Verge Of Signing With Pirates

Crosby, 30 in January, gives the Pirates "competition" at shortstop with incumbent Ronny Cedeno, acquired in the Jack Wilson deal. Crosby seems likely to win the job over Cedeno, considering that Crosby has a far superior career wOBA in spite of playing in the tougher league while hitting in one of the worst offensive parks in the game half of the time, with a .302 mark compared to .272 for Cedeno.

Both are solid defensively, and while Crosby didn't play much shortstop in 2009, he consistently posted above-average defensive metrics in the previous few seasons, and his +4.1 UZR/150 for his career easily trumps that of Cedeno, who has a -5.6 UZR/150 for his career at shortstop. Considering that Crosby walks more, has flashed superior power potential, and has a better track record defensively, it seems likely that the Pirates are about to add their 2010 everyday shortstop, as unfortunate as that may seem.

White Sox Sign Teahen to 3-Year Extension

The Cheat — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:53:21 -0000

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It looks like the White Sox weren't involved in the Winter Meeting's first big blockbuster, but that doesn't mean they weren't making suprising moves, signing Mark Teahen to a 3-year extension. The Sox lone position of depth appears to be third base, the position that Mark Teahen was supposedly brought in to play. They moved Gordon Beckham off third to bring in Teahen, and have both Dayan Viciedo and Brent Morel at the hot corner in the upper minors next year.

When Teahen was brought over from the Royals, the thought was that he was a passable stop-gap, that he could give the Sox a year of average-bat, below-average defense at the hot corner and not cost too much in terms of talent or actual money. But by signing him to a 3-year, $14M extension, the Sox are committing themselves to a player who, with the exception of a breakout 2006 campaign, has proven to be moderately above replacement level everywhere he's played.

I wouldn't go so far as to call Brent Morel trade bait, but this deal makes his name sure to be brought up by any team seeking to make a deal with the Sox.

Omar Vizquel to the ChiSox

Adam J. Morris — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:58:12 -0000

More photos » by Chris Carlson - AP

4 months ago: Texas Rangers' Omar Vizquel celebrates his solo home against the Los Angeles Angels during the fifth inning of a baseball game in Anaheim, Calif., Friday, Aug. 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

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Omar Vizquel has signed a one year deal for $1.375 million with the Chicago White Sox.

Officially, Vizquel is going to be a backup infielder, but I suspect that part of the appeal of signing with Chicago is that there is a pretty decent chance he'll end up starting for them at some point.

Right now, the ChiSox are talking about Gordon Beckham at second base, Alexei Ramirez at shortstop, and Mark Teahen at third base. Teahen, though, at third base is shaky for a contender, and I imagine Vizquel probably views this situation as one where he's more likely to get regular playing time than he would if he'd come back to Texas.

White Sox close in on shortstop Omar Vizquel

Eli Greenspan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:21:41 -0000

More photos » by Paul Battaglia - AP

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The White Sox are closing in on a deal with free agent shortstop Omar Vizquel, FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal is reporting. Vizquel gives the White Sox a solid back up at second, short, and third, where the White Sox are expected to have Gordon Beckham, Alexei Ramirez, and Mark Teahen start.

Despite hitting .266 this past season, Vizquel is still one of the top fielders in the league and the White Sox will certainly benefit from his presence.

Where The Mets Might Fit In The Young Trade Market

Sam Page — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:00:29 -0000

In a weak free agent class, and maybe Omar Minaya's last year with the team, one would expect the Mets to make at least one splash in the trade market. So far, four semi-major trades have gone through, before the BBWAA has even announced its yearly award winners. The Mets didn't really "lose out" on any of those four players, but the trades do provide some insight into the evolving market, and how the Mets fit in.

Matt Cerrone noted in metsblog's coverage of the J.J. Hardy trade the other day that three of the four trades featured arbitration eligible players (Teahen, Hardy, Hermida) and cited a Buster Olney piece that claimed teams were eager to avoid the "broken" arbitration system. While I'll accept avoiding arbitration as a partial explanation, it ignores some of the other interesting angles of these deals. The idea that the team dealing the arbitration-eligible player decides between only two options: prospects or non-tendering, implies that they are desperate to deal the player and would accept any trade return. These three deals didn't bear that out.

Firstly, the Hermida deal most clearly fits the Olney-mold--the Marlins didn't want to pay arbitration money for a replacement level outfielder without a bunch of unrealized potential. Such a trade is standard procedure for the Marlins, however, and hardly--if at all--suggests an overarching market shift. From the perspective of the Red Sox, Hermida represented a high-upside reserve outfielder that cost minimal talent and money. If more arbitration-eligible players like Hermida are easily available, big-market teams like the Mets would obviously benefit in taking a flier on a few of them.

Mark Teahen, similar to Hermida in his recent replacement-level performance and past value, fetched Chris Getz and Josh Fields. While Getz lost his starting job to Gordon Beckham and Josh Fields just lost his starting job, both players having a starting job in the first place reflects track records of minor league success and some major league competency. Both players could be decent placeholders on an uncertain Royals infield, with the potential to be more. Dave Cameron went as far as calling this trade "fantastic" for the Royals, which may seem hyperbolic, but his analysis is pretty spot-on.

With both Hermida and Teahen, their respective teams were trying to avoid arbitration. The arbitration system is set to award those players salaries equal to or slightly more than they would be worth, but that seemingly has more to do with Hermida and Teahen being broken, than it does the arbitration system. Both player had performed well below expectation and past levels of performance, particularly defensively, which the arbitration process inherently undervalues, so they inevitably were going to get salaries bigger than they deserved, based on service time alone. Getting back to the original Olney/Cerrone point, I think the cause is correct, but the effect may be wrong. Yes, the arbitration system is broken, in that it will errantly award Teahen and Hermida above-market contracts, but that doesn't mean there will necessarily be a bunch of free, young, and talented arbitration-eligible players available, as Matt seems to suggest. It just means that some crappy arbitration-eligible players will be available, and not necessarily for nothing, as the Teahen trade indicated.

J.J. Hardy is actually a good counter-example. Tommy Bennett used the Hardy trade as a springboard to explain why, in economic terms, players of his caliber would not be part of Olney's "avalanche of non-tenders," but we have the benefit of already knowing the Brewers weren't operating under this prospect or non-tender paradigm. They were trading Hardy just as much because it saved money, as they had a potentially equal replacement in Alcides Escobar in waiting. And while some may have found Carlos Gomez an underwhelming return, in terms of strict value, the trade was completely fair. Gomez is under team control for 4 more years and is, because of his elite defense, at least a 1.5 WAR centerfielder. Hardy, who is ~4 WAR at SS, is the superior player now, but is more costly and a free agent in two years. The Kalkman trade calculator method, which subsumes these factors, judged Gomez a more valuable asset, and given his offensive upside (outfield Jimmy Rollins?), he seems like a more than fair return.

What this trade indicates, if anything, is that teams are willing to make perceptually unfair trades for less-stable assets of approximately equal value. It also perhaps shows a preference to fill one hole on the roster, as opposed to acquire a few more players that may be more valuable in theory, but redundant on the roster. Whereas proven-star for young player trades typically required a large package of elite prospects to get done, the Hardy trade, and even the Cliff Lee trade before it, seemingly suggest a move toward proper evaluation of young players, in which either a good-not-great package suffices or one stud younger player gets traded (Sanchez/Alderson?).

Maybe I'm reading too much into one trade, but this development would seemingly benefit the Mets more than a slew of crappy arbitration-eligible players hitting free agency. While the Mets don't have a set of young players with major-league success like Gomez (yay 2009 in-season development failure!), they do have a set of interesting tweener types with starter potential (Murphy, Evans, Parnell, Pagan) and a set of near-ready top prospects (Mejia, Davis, Niese, Martinez), whose value could be boosted in this market. While it would probably be selling low on many of those players, with the windows closing on the Mets "core," the Mets could be set up to make several win-now trades that are long-term losses of value. A Halladay trade centered around Mike Pelfrey? Or maybe shopping Daniel Murphy to a team with a thirdbase vacancy? We'll see.

The Mark Teahen, Josh Fields, Chris Getz, Trade Analysis & Link Roundup

royalsreview — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:00:23 -0000

First, my own unsolicited take on this trade.

The news that took eighteen hours or so to emerge was not tremendously good for the Royals. Sending the White Sox $2 million dollars changes the complexion of this trade significantly. Don't get me wrong, it's still a minor deal in the grand scheme of things, but the real benefit to the deal is now much more murkier. The financial savings is murkier, and now, for this trade to work out, either Josh Fields or Chris Getz has to contribute to the Royals during their pre-arb years. Yesterday, there were two clear benefits to the move, now there is only one.

I understand that many of you were frustrated with Teahen's stagnation, but he was basically a generic player. He wasn't great, but he also wasn't part of the problem. (His defensive numbers have been pretty bad the last two seasons, but I consider that more a function of his playing all over the diamond and sample size issues. Which may be too generous.) I understand Dayton's desire to move him, but I also understand Kenny Williams's desire to have him. And in reality, the Royals and White Sox split the difference money-wise, a fitting gesture for such a "meh" trade that neither side really seems too fired up about.

I'm not really sure how to feel about this trade. Fields' career with the Pale Hose was over, so I'm happy he gets to see a new organization. I don't like that Getz is gone. Teahen has been worth .4 WAR combined over the past two seasons and has seen his walk rate drop each year since 2007. If he can get back to drawing walks like he did in 2006 and 2007, he can be valuable again. -South Side Sox

So now, the stakes, though still small, are raised for Fields and Getz. The Royals could have just let Teahen walk after all, so in effect, they bought the rights to Getz and Fields for two million. Neither player is actually that young, but both are still green in service time years, which does matter. There's a school of thought that suggests these are the best types of guys to have, mid-to-late twenties guys who are still cheap, while there's another school of thought that might argue that this is yet another non-rebuilding move from Moore. Personally, I know myself well enough to admit that if the Royals had gotten back some as-yet-unknown barely legal rookie ball prospect, I'd probably have been more excited.

In this case, we'll just have to... wait for it... trust the process, trust the scouting. Apparently Getz is the key to the deal for the Royals, with Fields being just another low OBP slugger with no glove (also another Born Again) who may or may not be a part of anything. I don't know. The curious thing is that at the very least the Getz trade should set in motion either a reconfiguration of the infield or another trade, or two. We'll just have to wait and see.

Pointlessly premature verdict: Cash to Chicago pushes this from a slightly interesting quasi-prospect grab to a mostly innocuous head-scratcher, for now.

A massive roundup of links about the trade and other matters after the jump:

Other Royals:

Baseball:

Grab Bag:

White Sox Show Their Hand With Teahen Trade

The Cheat — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:35:43 -0000

More photos » by Pat Sullivan - AP

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Two days ago, as the Yankees marched on to yet another purchased World Series title, the White Sox appeared like they could take any number of routes to fill out their '10 lineup. I had planned on writing an SSS Official Off-Season Plan as I have in the past -- quick synopsis: upgrade IF defense by negotiating with the devil. Buy Adrian Beltre, shift the left side of the infield one space right. Find a cheap scrapheap corner outfielder. I was thinking Xavier Nady (also a Boras client) and re-up with Jim Thome -- but Kenny Williams had other ideas, wasting no time in reshaping the '10 roster.

Jettisoned (for sure): Jermaine Dye, Josh Fields, Chris Getz; (maybe): Scott Podsednik (I'm never going to write off his return)

Returning: Mark Kotsay

Newcomer: Mark Teahen

We basically knew all those moves Thursday morning, but it still wasn't apparent how the Sox would use Teahen. My own thought was that it would mean an end to our years of having a lumbering, full-time DH on the roster. In that scenario, Teahen would have played 3B/OF and Pods probably would have been back as well, rotating with any number of players through the DH spot. But Kenny erased that notion by naming Teahen the White Sox 3rd baseman of the immediate future.

What does it all mean for the '10 roster?

The moves leave the Sox with two obvious holes at Designated Hitter and a corner outfield spot. DH is unlikely to be filled anytime soon, as the Sox don't have much to spend and the bottom has fallen out of the defensively-challenged hitter market in recent years. It's likely that the Sox will go bargain hunting as the calendar turns to February, with Williams not ruling out bringing back Jim Thome or even Dye.

"I don't think you can rule it out because it's a long offseason," said Williams, adding he might not fill the designated hitter role until the latter part of the winter. "We just got started. Everyone knows I think the world of this guy."

The remaining corner outfield spot is a bit trickier. The Sox stand with about $90M committed to their players making above the league minimum (arbitration figures estimated), and an operating budget that figures to come in under $100M. It's unlikely that they can bring in adequate talent at those two premium offensive positions on the open market for less than $10M. This means a trade, of course, is on the horizon; and Bobby Jenks seems like the most likely to leave.

Phil Rogers seems eager to remove Paul Konerko's $12M contract, though he never provides a team willing to take on that contract, or how the Sox will replace his production.

No, I suspect Jenks-for-an-outfielder will be the rumor of the off-season; and it's already started courtesy Joe Cowley with a Jenks and Jordan Danks for Carl Crawford postulation on 670 the score. We'll have plenty of time to discuss these rumors over the winter.

For now, let's take a look at what it means for the Sox as they stand currently:

Beckham moves to 2nd -- In my unpublished off-season plan, I wanted to move Beckham off third not because I didn't think he could play there, but because I thought it was the best way to upgrade both offense and defense at the same time. I don't particularly care which infield spot he gets moved to. Alexei Ramirez committed a number of errors and short, yes; and he was a bit of an adventure turning the double play. But he was solid, and overall a reliable glove in the field.

I learned after the 2000 season not to get upset at an adequate shortstop who draws the ire of radio call-in guests with some high profile errors. Every shortstop makes errors, and most of them are of the 'bad' variety. Alexei is no different than any host of major league shortstops. He was the definition of average defensively. He was merely frustrating because he showed plus range and the ability to make some spectacular plays, but negated it by making the occasional annoyingly lackadaisical error, which he seemed to correct as the season wore on. (He was probably one of the top 5 defensive SS in baseball in the second half). I'll take my chances that he's more the second-half Alexei than first-half.

So Beckham moves to second base, a position that would seem to be more natural for him, and his predicted destination since being drafted in '08. He should have no trouble making the transition, as we saw him make considerable progress at 3B over the course of the season. My only complaint is that if the Sox had this in mind, there was no reason not to be playing Beckham at 2B over the last month of the season when the Sox were clearly out of the AL central race.

As for Teahen at third, um, yeah, that's another story. He's bad defensively. Not quite Josh Fields bad, but close enough that he shouldn't be considered a first option, and isn't the type of player who pushes a franchise player like Beckham to another position.

Offensively, Teahen is living off his reputation from a breakout '06 season when he put up and ISO of .225. In the three years since, he's averaged an ISO of about .135. He has the glove of Mark Reynolds, and the bat of Pedro Feliz.

Watching Teahen bat against the White Sox in recent years, you might get the impression that he was a speedy baserunner, as I seem to recall two separate inside-the-park homeruns. And while he did use Kauffman's expansive outfield to pile up 23 triples in his first 4 seasons, he managed only 1 last season. Diving into the Bill James Handbook, Teahen is listed as having a negative impact on the bases last year due to his ability to run into key outs. James also has a measure called Manufactured Runs Created, a measure of the little things (bunts, steals, sac flies, etc.) impact on creating runs. In this category, Teahen ranked among the Royals top 3 at 16 MRC. But the Royals ranked last in the league, and Teahen appears to be marginally above average here. (A full data set was not provided, and I'm not going to draw any conclusions based on a year of data.)

Teahen's only under contract for a year, and, thanks to the $2M from the Royals, should only cost the Sox about $2.5M. So maybe he's just a stop-gap, future utility guy, and the Sox have supreme confidence in their 3B depth (Retherford, Viciedo, Morel).

So what did the Sox gain by adding Teahen? Not much in my view. They didn't give up anything of value. Chris Getz is the best player they gave up, and he might be able to post some league average production at his peak (if he can stay healthy).

Overall, it was the right idea -- getting a 3B to move Beckham to a more natural position -- but Teahen is the wrong player to take the Sox to the next level.

Friday Afternoon Quick Hits

Eli Greenspan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:23:49 -0000

More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP

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The regular season is so exciting that I almost forget how exciting the offseason is!

The White Sox declined Jermaine Dye's 12 million dollar club option, as expected, paying him the 950,000 dollar buyout instead. Mark Teahen is expected to fill his spot. The highly respected veteran should not have trouble finding another gig.
Scott Merkin via Twitter is reporting that the White Sox likely won't bring back outfielder Scott Podsednik. He could emerge as an option on the other side of town with the Cubs.
The Royals declined options on reliever Yasuhiko Yabuta, Coco Crisp, and Miguel Olivo.
Cardinals GM Jon Mozeliak expects All-Star outfielder Matt Holliday to reach the open market, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reporting. Not really a surprise here, being a Boras client.
The Brewers are in the market for a starter, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is reporting. They have varying degrees of interest in Mark Mulder and John Lackey, which is a good sign for Brewers fans.

Transaction Report: Me

devil_fingers — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:47:49 -0000

I put off posting this longer than I should have, as I think on Fridays only 9 of my 23 regular readers come around, but I have a transaction to report, that might be even more thrilling than the Mark Teahen-for-Chris Getz-and-Josh Fields-Royals-White Sox-Utility-Man Blockbuster (did that even go through yet?). I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, but...

The brains behind FanGraphs.

As of Monday, I will be a regular contributor to ~~Cornell~~ FanGraphs (maybe you've heard of it?) on their analysis blog (under a different name, but it'll be easy enough to figure out). It's a great opportunity for me, and I appreciate the Daves (Appleman and Cameron, pictured left) bringing me on board. I mean, I'm assuming they haven't figured out exactly what kind of stuff I do yet. But, you know, I'm sure the Royals might have had misgivings the day after they signed Jose Guillen, but by then it was too late.

Neither FanGraphs nor Driveline are "exclusive," meaning that if I wanted to, I could keep writing the same amount for both. However, I'm already probably spending ~~more~~ about as much time as I should on this hobby, and real life recently got more complicated (and fun) with the arrival of B.L.F. I thought about it for a while, but finally decided that FanGraphs would be the best move for me. So I won't be a regular poster here any more.

Kyle Boddy lures a young blogger-wannabe into a life of nerdy dissipation.

It was a tough decision. Kyle basically found me hanging out on the corner, handing out trivial sabermetric analyses and bitching about trades to anyone who was bored enough to listen. He let me basically do whatever I wanted. My first "real" post here in January was something I'd been kicking around for a while (remember the days before UZR was freely available?), and I obviously couldn't say enough about it... I hope I've learned to keep things a bit more "efficient" since then. Since then, there have been some good and some not-as-good posts, but I've learned a great deal not just about baseball, but about blogging from this experience. I won't go through the highlights now -- this has gone on long enough as it is.

While I won't be posting here on a regular basis anymore, I will still be around here and other SBNation sites, and will sometimes have posts that I'll do here and elsewhere on "bigger" issues. I don't want to be the guy who's already graduated but keeps hanging around campus (alright alright alright), but I'll be around.

Final thank-yous:

Thanks to everyone who read my stuff here, especially those of you who linked to it. I appreciate the time it took. I hope that if any of you aren't FanGraphs regulars yet, you'll come by and check out my stuff there (you can also continue to follow me on Twitter). I know I'll be watching to see new developments here at Driveline as Kyle enters a new era in his business.

Big thanks to Kyle for giving me a shot basically out of nowhere and giving me pretty much complete freedom to write about anything I wanted. You the man.

Thanks to Royals Review, both various users there and especially Will, for putting up with my nonsense in FanPosts and comments there. No, I never "worked" there, I'm just some annoying guy who posted a lot. Without that forum, Kyle probably would never have been tricked into thinking I had something to say.

Thanks to Sky Kalkman for help and encouragement by email and Google Talk.

And thank you Dayton, just for being Dayton.

Chicago White Sox Acquire Mark Teahen for Josh Fields and Chris Getz

R.J. Anderson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:14:30 -0000

UPDATE 2 (12:31 PM, Tommy): The trade has been confirmed by the Chicago Sun-Times.

UPDATE (12:05 PM, Tommy): According to ESPN's Buster Olney, talks between the Royals and White Sox are "not that far along," although he adds that "the expectation of rival GMs is that the Royals at some point are going to trade Teahen, who is expected to make about $5 million next season and has become too expensive."

---

Kansas City receives: 3B Josh Fields & 2B Chris Getz

Chicago receives: INF/OF Mark Teahen

A Bill Madden report has Teahen pegged to replace Jermaine Dye in right field next year. Throughout his career he's logged nearly 2,500 innings in the outfield - mostly the corners - and has a -1 UZR to show for it. That's not horrible, especially not when contrasted to Jermaine Dye's dead-horse act the past few seasons. His bat is what it is. Over the last three years his wRAA have ranged from -8.5 to 1.4, with a -3.9 year thrown in for good measure. Given the move to a more hitter friendly park, Teahen's raw offensive numbers should improve. He is 28-years-old and Cot's accredits him with service time of 3.155 (years.days). Add a year and Teahen will become a free agent for the first time following the 2011 season.

In return, the Royals are dealt two players who fit into their puzzle somehow.

Fields is a former top prospect who struggled in 2009 offensively and defensively. He's torn up Triple-A enough to show he's got some bat, but outside of 2007, it's yet to translate. Fields has a penchant for striking out one-third of the time and while he walks at a league average rate, there's only so much offense you provide when making contact less than 70% of the time (like he did in 2009; 71.1% for his career). He's shown some pop, mostly in 2007, and the Royals are banking on Fields at least taking Teahen's role as a super-utility player. Maybe he puts it together with a change of scenery, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Getz meanwhile failed in his first season as a Major League second baseman. His minor league track record suggests he can hit better too, and unlike Fields he's not a boom or bust hitter. He walked a fair amount in the minors and strikeouts were rarely an issue (nor was power). Scouting reports suggest he's a decent defender at second base, although they also peg him as a future utility man.

This doesn't seem like a win for either club. The White Sox get the better player for right now and shed players without roles, but at the same time Teahen is unlikely to morph into something more than an average player at best. Meanwhile the Royals free up some cash and get players who may replicate Teahen's performances over the past few years at a reduced cost.

Interesting way to start the off-season.