Player Interrogation: Mark Teahen
Since the first player audited in this cozy little pandemic didn't ruffle enough feathers, I'm going for the gusto in round two. Let's turn up the heat.
Mark Teahen was drafted with the 39th pick in the first round of the 2002 draft. Since he's an Oakland prospect that Kansas City traded for, there has to be something wrong with him, some massive flaw that renders him useless, nothing more than the latest entry in the growing list of gruesome pawn jobs the A's have laid on us. I'm going to wiz on Beane's grave, mark my words.
I could get into the minutiae of Teahen's minor league track record, but it all tends to point at the same thing, which is that Teahen's power is MIA, which doesn't help you last in the MLB. But I suppose we owe our hot commodity prospect from yesteryear a bit more detail than that, don't we?
Teahen looks and moves pretty comfortably at third base, which is a pretty important qualification to stay at the position. He was prone to mental mistakes last year, but he also made several plays that led one to believe he was a seasoned, battle-tested vet. He should be adequate at third, if not above-average.
Given his subdued power numbers in the minors, along with the guy he replaced, the Randa comparisons are inevitable. There are several noteworthy differences between their hitting styles, namely that Teahen is selective when he's in a groove, picky when he's in a funk. Randa was just looking for something to hit. Teahen also got the bat knocked out of his hands a little by hard stuff on the inner third, and I never knew Randa to have trouble catching up with heat. That would be the main reason why Teahen went to opposite field so much last year, although he began hitting to all fields more regularly in September, by far his strongest month.
His patience at the plate is an obvious plus, but will it forever be anchored by a high strikeout rate? Is it worth putting up with? Perhaps not, if his power doesn't emerge. The only thing he really had on Joe Randa -- or has on Alex Gordon -- at this point is the fact that he's a left-handed bat, and that alone won't make people ignore his whiffability.
Alex Gordon is on his way to Wichita, where he will immediately begin masticating Texas League "pitching", which means he's hot on Teahen's trail, since Gordon's the kind of polished college hitter who could leapfrog Triple-A with little adjustment time. It's not fair to Teahen to make him play for his job in the first couple months of his second full season, but the game is cruel to far more players than it's kind to. The organization will not move Gordon to another position if Teahen doesn't show that September wasn't a fluke.
Up next: Jeremy Affeldt
Mark Teahen was drafted with the 39th pick in the first round of the 2002 draft. Since he's an Oakland prospect that Kansas City traded for, there has to be something wrong with him, some massive flaw that renders him useless, nothing more than the latest entry in the growing list of gruesome pawn jobs the A's have laid on us. I'm going to wiz on Beane's grave, mark my words.
I could get into the minutiae of Teahen's minor league track record, but it all tends to point at the same thing, which is that Teahen's power is MIA, which doesn't help you last in the MLB. But I suppose we owe our hot commodity prospect from yesteryear a bit more detail than that, don't we?
Teahen looks and moves pretty comfortably at third base, which is a pretty important qualification to stay at the position. He was prone to mental mistakes last year, but he also made several plays that led one to believe he was a seasoned, battle-tested vet. He should be adequate at third, if not above-average.
Given his subdued power numbers in the minors, along with the guy he replaced, the Randa comparisons are inevitable. There are several noteworthy differences between their hitting styles, namely that Teahen is selective when he's in a groove, picky when he's in a funk. Randa was just looking for something to hit. Teahen also got the bat knocked out of his hands a little by hard stuff on the inner third, and I never knew Randa to have trouble catching up with heat. That would be the main reason why Teahen went to opposite field so much last year, although he began hitting to all fields more regularly in September, by far his strongest month.
His patience at the plate is an obvious plus, but will it forever be anchored by a high strikeout rate? Is it worth putting up with? Perhaps not, if his power doesn't emerge. The only thing he really had on Joe Randa -- or has on Alex Gordon -- at this point is the fact that he's a left-handed bat, and that alone won't make people ignore his whiffability.
Alex Gordon is on his way to Wichita, where he will immediately begin masticating Texas League "pitching", which means he's hot on Teahen's trail, since Gordon's the kind of polished college hitter who could leapfrog Triple-A with little adjustment time. It's not fair to Teahen to make him play for his job in the first couple months of his second full season, but the game is cruel to far more players than it's kind to. The organization will not move Gordon to another position if Teahen doesn't show that September wasn't a fluke.
Up next: Jeremy Affeldt
posted by KC Luke @ 1:12 AM
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