Ooooh, sweet progress, in five easy steps.
Step One: Trade a guy for the sad realization of what that guy will actually (hopefully) become.
Josh Fields was a power-hitting third baseman with a suspect glove and a wide-open future. Mark Teahen tied for eighth in errors for American League third basemen last year (11, same as the all-but-done Melvin Mora) while posting a .956 fielding percentage and while I admit there are a million reaons to be suspicious of defensive stats (more on that another day), I do admit this does not look good; if fielding stats are inherently flawed, and Mark Teahen gets killed across the board, and his upside is that he’ll hit a lot of home runs in his new park, and he strikes out a lot (8th in the AL in 2009). . . you know, that sounds a lot like the guy they just ran out of town. Teahen is also 28, suggesting what we see is likely all we’ll ever get. Hawk Harrelson will, on at least five occassions in 2010, call Teahen one of the best third baseman in baseball today. And when he does, I will throw a chair at my TV.
Step Two: Guarantee three years of middle ground.
You know who Teahen really looks like? The average baseball player, and the Sox have taken a look at their newest employee and thought “You know what? Between now and 2012, we will probably have no better option at this position than the most average baseball player imaginable.” And that depresses me.
Step Three: Beat the Braves.
Just kidding. The Indians actually lost that series.
Step Four: Andruw Jones.
Did you know that since 2007, Jones has posted a batting average as high as .222 and, on one occassion, an astronomical .323 on-base percentage? It’s like Mack-O-Wack, Nicky the Swish, Dewayne “Time to Get” Wise et al never left town! You know something, I can’t bring myself to explore this line of thinking any further.
Step Five: Other teams are stupid, obviously.
Jason Bay, Matt Holliday, Curtis Granderson, et cetera et cetera, and you know what you can do with your “top-tier acquisitions” and “huge upgrades over the likes of Nick Swisher”? You can throw them away because this is a team that has signed 21 Gold Gloves and eight All-Star Games’ worth of baseball player since November 23. And they’re just getting started. Team of Destiny!
I’m glad you feel like I do….you can do all the sabermetrics you want to, but Teahen is what he is. If anything, he’s probably on the downside of his career.
man, that’s exactly what I thought when they extended teahen. “three years? we’re not even going to *TRY* for a big name at a key position for at least three years?!?!?!” peavy aside, next year is already looking pretty crappy.
You never know about Jones. His drop in ability coincided a little too close to Selig’s crackdown on Flinstones Chewables. But as a bench bat, the Sox could do worse.
It could be worse. They could be plugging Dayan Viciedo in there just to fill the position. We don’t need a huge upgrade to compete for the division, especially with our starting pitching. While we didn’t make any splashes so far this offseason, Rios (hopefully) and Peavy were big moves that already occurred to help us this year. DET is dismantling, KC is KC, CLE is CLE, MIN… eh… will probably still win the division, but hey, it will be kind of fun to watch again. Or if we are lucky, we’ll get to experience another first round annihilation at the hands of a real team! Woo!
Of course, this move and lack of other big offseason moves will be overshadowed when Rios hits .300, 30 hrs and drives in 95, while Peavy goes 22-0 with seven no-hitters. TOD!
We have talented, or supposedly talent players already. If they produce, we should be fine. Quentin, Rios, Bacon, Ramierez, the whole starting rotation, etc. Optimism Andrew, give it a shot!