So About This Mark Teahen Trade

I first heard about this trade while I was at work on Thursday morning, and my initial reaction was of complete surprise.  I hadn't even heard a whisper of the White Sox being interested in Teahen or one that said Chris Getz may be traded this offseason.

As for Fields I was hoping that Kenny Williams would find somebody dumb enough to take him off the team's hands.

Still as the day went on there were never any confirmations of the deal, and thanks to the rigorous training I've received at FanHouse from the likes of Ed Price and Jeff Fletcher -- by the way it's been pretty invaluable to have those two around this year -- I knew better than to worry about figuring this deal out before we even knew it was happening.

But it's happened now.



Unfortunately Kenny took a lot of the drama out of the situation this morning.  At first I was wondering whether or not Teahen was the plan to replace Jermaine Dye in right -- who was bought out this morning as well and is now a free agent who won't be coming back -- but Kenny said that Teahen will be the White Sox starting third baseman in 2010.

Which means Bacon will be sizzling on the other side of the infield next year at second base.  Which I guess is why the team had no qualms losing Getz in the deal.

As for Teahen's defensive ability at third base, it's really hard to quantify a player's glove when you don't see him play everyday, and it's even harder when that player has been moved around to a lot of different positions like the Royals did with him.

Still, I did get to see him play 20 to 30 times a year over the last few seasons, and with the help of some of his defensive stats -- which aren't really reliable -- he seems good enough to play the position.  In fact, I'm rather confident he can do better at it than Bacon.

Bacon got better as the season went on, but he still doesn't seem to be quick enough going to his right which led to a lot of doubles down the third base line.

Now that Gordon is back in the middle infield he'll probably flourish at second base where he'll have more time to react, and there's no doubt his offensive production will stand out at the position.  He'll be ranked with the Ian Kinslers and Dustin Pedroias of the world.

I will miss Getz, though.

He's not a spectacular player by any means, and I'm not sure there's any more upside to him than what we saw this season.  He'll likely be more of a .270 hitter as his career progresses, but he did play solid defense at second base and I valued his speed.  He stole 25 bases for the Sox this season, and did so in only 27 attempts.  So what he lacks in top end speed he makes up for in knowing when to steal a bag.

As for the upside of Teahen, general managers have seen it for years.  Me, not so much.  Granted, his power numbers are likely to go up playing in US Cellular Field for half the year rather than the cavernous Kaufmann Stadium, but he doesn't walk very often and is prone to the strikeout.

Teahen has had strikeout totals of 127, 131 and 123 in his last three seasons.

Still, he does provide a left handed bat in the middle part of the order, which the team needs now that Jim Thome is gone -- and I don't think he's coming back, I'm thinking Cleveland -- and its only real lefty presence is A.J. Pierzynski.

So all in all, I'm not exactly excited about this deal. Though I'm not really going to judge it yet because it's the first move the White Sox have made this offseason, and it's hard to come to a decision when you haven't seen the whole picture yet.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.