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December 12, 2007

Player Profile

Mark Teahen

by Marc Normandin

The 2006 season saw Mark Teahen make great strides offensively, but last year saw a drop in his output and a reversion to his pumpkin form. This situation presents some issues regarding Teahen's future performance, and those are what we will look at today.

Mark Thomas Teahen attended St. Mary's University in California, where he was a high batting average guy with middling power, except for in his last season:

Year Team             AB    AVG/ OBP/ SLG  XBH%  ISO  2B+3B   BB%    K%
2000 St. Mary's(NCAA) 195  .323/.444/.431  21%  .108    9    16.3%  13.8%
2001 St. Mary's(NCAA) 186  .360/.460/.489  28%  .129   19    15.9%  10.2%
2002 St. Mary's(NCAA) 194  .412/.493/.624  31%  .212   19    13.2%   7.5%

Teahen showed excellent control of the strike zone, walking a considerable amount while seldom striking out, and his batting average and his power climbed each season. The right-throwing, left-batting Teahen was subsequently drafted by the Oakland A's in the famed Moneyball draft class of 2002. Teahen had always hit the other way—it's part of the reason he was able to control the zone and hit for high averages—but he lacked power since he avoided pulling the ball. The Athletics felt that Teahen could develop power if he began to pull the ball, but getting him to do that would prove to be more difficult than expected.

As Moneyball's author, Michael Lewis, wrote in this New York Times Magazine article, and our own Dan Fox recalled in a wonderful piece last year, the A's attempted to mold Teahen into a pull hitter, showing him how Jason Giambi used to be, but Teahen ended up putting on fat instead of muscle, and screwed himself up rather than improving his offensive profile:

Year Team        AB    AVG/ OBP/ SLG  XBH%  ISO  2B+3B   BB%    K%
2002 Modesto(A+) 234  .239/.307/.299  20%  .060   10    8.2%  20.6%
2003 Modesto(A+) 381  .278/.377/.362  24%  .084   23    12.9%  22.5%
2004 Midland(AA) 197  .335/.419/.543  38%  .208   19    12.7%  19.2%

Not only did Teahen not develop any power at Modesto in two years there, but his strikeout rate increased drastically from where it was during his collegiate career. The 21-year-old Teahen struck out 101 times in 381 at-bats in 2003, which doesn't fly unless your Isolated Power is about 200 points higher than his was. An increase in BABIP each year—from .306 to .374 to .408 at the three listed stops—helped Teahen put together better seasons, and he was even promoted to Triple-A Sacramento for 60 at-bats, where he managed to avoid falling on his face, hitting .275/.383/.391 at age 22.