Examining Mark Teahen at third and Gordon Beckham at second base

November 6, 12:21 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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Teahen was poor defensively at third, but him playing there could allow Beckham to flourish. (AP photo/Michael Dwyer)

When the Mark Teahen trade was rumored yesterday (and confirmed today), most assumed Teahen was brought in to play right field to replace Jermaine Dye.

Nope. Kenny Williams shot that down, according to Joe Cowley:

KW says Teahen is now the starting 3B and Beckham is starting second baseman.

On the outset, this looks like a bad move. Teahen has consistently been rated as a below-average defensive third baseman while Beckham was about league-average in one year. We don't know where Beckham's defense would have gone with another year at third, but he seemed to make improvements and gain confidence with daily time at third in '09, so it maybe could have been slightly above-average.

He won't get that chance, though. Teahen—whose UZR/150 has been well below league average in three of his four years in the majors—will be penciled in at that position that Beckham manned admirably in 2009.

But moving Beckham to second could—not will—have a net positive effect on the White Sox' team UZR. See, Beckham is a natural shortstop. Most natural shortstops (excluding Alexei Ramirez) see a significant boost in UZR when moving to second base.

That's not to say Beckham will immediately become a gold glove second baseman, though. After all, we don't have any real data on Beckham's defense at shortstop, so we can't quantify if he was ever a good defensive shortstop.

If his play at third was any indication, though, he has the baseball instincts to develop into a decent second baseman. That's all speculation, though.

While you can worry about Teahen not producing at a good enough clip for a corner position player, it's a wash because Beckham's production very well could match up to most MLB third basemen in 2010 while Teahen's is about average for second baseman.

Plus, putting Teahen at third allows the White Sox to shop for a corner outfielder. What the team should do is move Carlos Quentin to right and pick up a left fielder, but I'm not sure that's the direction the team will go in.

In the end, though, I'm just reaching for positives. Teahen's been essentially a replacement-level player the last two years in large part due to poor defense, and it's unlikely his offense will improve to the point where it can really make up for his deficiencies with the glove. Getting 1.0 WAR out of Teahen in 2010 might be a relative success.