Cubs about to get better...Teahan to Cubs, Murton to KC

[Madtown Bomber]

Bruce Levine of ESPN 1000 in Chicago is reporting that the Cubs are close to sending Matt Mouton and a minor leaguer to the Kansas City Royals for Mark Teahan. Rich get richer...

[PeaveyFury]

That would be Matt Murton, I'm assuming.

[trwi7]

Wow stupid Royals what the hell?

[Patrick425]

Was the original post supposed to be in blue. Why would this be such a great deal for the Cubs? Also, isn't he a 3B? Don't they already have a pretty good 3B?

[TooLiveBrew]

Is it that big of a deal? Teahen will have to be a plug-n-play in RF. I can't imagine he can play CF, and I can't imagine the Soriano Experience will be moving back to CF. Will this be that big of an improvement over Jaque-strap? Honest question.

[chinabob99]

I think he is a LF. He was in OBP machine in 2006 IIRC, not sure about last year.

[Patrick425]

Please tell me what I'm not seeing here. Why is Teahen so much better than Murton?

 

Player Compare Year to Date MLB Tracking Stats
Player			AB	R	H	1B	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	KO	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG
Murton, Matt LF CHC			235	35	66	45	13	0	8	22	26	39	1	0	0.2809	0.3525	0.4383
Teahen, Mark 3B KC			544	78	155	109	31	8	7	60	55	127	13	5	0.2849	0.3526	0.4099

[Madtown Bomber]

That was one of the professional hitters I believe Melvin was talking about. He is young and has a chance to get better. Can play 1st, 3rd, RF, LF. Good player. He fits in well with the Cubs as he would have with the Brewers.

[chinabob99]

Teahen bats lefty, and the Cubs have been all about finding a left handed hitter. Murton might actually end up being the better player, but the Cubs must think Teahen better fits their needs now.

[tyguy20204]

Well, Murton is a butcher in the field.

 

Although he probably has higher offensive upside.

[Brian the Automator]

If the Royals are planning on platooning Murton and Brown in LF to go along with Guillen in RF, those are some decent corners. I would hope they'd be getting another player to go along with that deal, though.

 

Teahen is a decent corner OF option, and a replacement at 3B should Ramirez get himself hurt.

[trwi7]

Well if this is true maybe it puts the Cubs out of the Fukudome sweepstakes.

[Madtown Bomber]

man are these idiots in Chicago make Cubs fans look bad. They think the moves they have made will make the Cubs heads and heals better then all the Central teams.

 

They are also reporting that San Diego and Cincinnati are real interested in Mark Prior. They seem to think he is done and anything they can get is icing on the cake.

[Big Reed]

I'd also take Teahan over Murton . Teahan did have 20 homers in 2006 (KC and minors) . I'm not sure what happened to his power in 2007.

 

With KC signing GUillen, maybe they were trying save some money by swapping Teahan for Murton.

[TooLiveBrew]

Patrick - thanks for posting that. That's kinda the first thing that popped into my head.

 

Reed, you may be onto something with the price-drop angle.

 

these idiots in Chicago make Cubs fans look bad

You don't have to try to do that, do you? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[JohnBriggs12]

Cubs are proving to have both better and more trading chips and knowledge of what their needs are than Melvins seems to.

 

The Brewers have needed a lefty OF bat since Jenkins' option wasn't picked up and where's their focus? Costly righthanded hitting infielders. I'm mystified.

[Patrick425]

I'd also take Teahan over Murton . Teahan did have 20 homers in 2006 (KC and minors) . I'm not sure what happened to his power in 2007.

Minor league numbers don't always translate into MLB numbers and Murton had more HRs than Teahen in less then half the AB's. I don't get at all how this would be such a great trade for the Cubs. Teahan is not living up to expectations and the Cubs didn't really give Murton a fair shot last year IMHO.

[brains and braun]

I don't get all this debate over whether it was a good trade or not. i'd take Teahen over Lyle Mouton any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

(Still can't find that blue...maybe because I have a Mac? I always start by going to add reply. Is that wrong?)

[RyDogg66]

Cubs are proving to have both better and more trading chips and knowledge of what their needs are than Melvins seems to.

 

The Brewers have needed a lefty OF bat since Jenkins' option wasn't picked up and where's their focus? Costly righthanded hitting infielders. I'm mystified.

The Brewers need to improve their team defense. That most likely isnt happening by leaving Braun at 3b.

 

[trwi7]

brains and braun wrote:

(Still can't find that blue...maybe because I have a Mac? I always start by going to add reply. Is that wrong?)

 

Yeah going to add reply is right and when you're there there should be a tool bar above the posting area with smilies, fonts, quotes, hyperlinks etc. look all the way to the left and you should see an A with a bunch of colors under it highlight what you want to put in blue and then go to that A with the colors under it and just click on blue. It should show up as blue before you hit post.

[crewcrazy]

Teahan and Murton seem to be about equal to me, with Teahan maybe getting the edge because of defense. Still, this quote from Jim Hendry is pretty funny:

 

"We still like Murton," Hendry said. "We think Murt's an everyday big-leaguer. He knows we all like him. Life would be a lot easier if Murton were left-handed."

 

The Cubs' desperation to add a left-handed bat is comical, especially considering the main problem with the Cubs' offense last year was that they couldn't hit left-handed pitching. At least if this goes through, Hendry would get a decent left-handed bat, but it seems to me that all of this could have been avoided if they had kept Jacque Jones in the first place.

[erbacaine04]

So in other words the Cubs traded for another Mark Derosa...a guy that can play on the INF where his Numbers will be ok...but will be used in the OF where 7 HRs in 500ABs is nothing special at all.

 

I was worried they would get Fukudome because he would be better upgrade for them...but now they have no real power in RF(Tehan), SS(Theriot), CF(Pie)

 

Tehan would fit well with us where we really do not need another power bat...but the Cubs need more power with really Soriano and Aram as there real power hitters and DLee's power dropping

[TooLiveBrew]

I really would like to see Melvin & Co. check out what cost it may take to land Fukodome now.

[brains and braun]

I don't think I can do blue. There is no "A" on that bottom row for me near Post Options, Smilies, etc. Bummer. But thanks anyway. Anyone know if this is a Mac problem?

[SoCalBrewfan]

Cubs are proving to have both better and more trading chips and knowledge of what their needs are than Melvins seems to.

 

I'm trying to think of what they've done this offseason to warrant such praise. They dumped Monroe for a PTBNL, dumped Jacque Jones for Infante, later flipping Infante and Ohman for a AA reliever who might be good but has a lot left to prove. They've resigned Kerry Wood for a year, exercised the option on Ward, declined those on Floyd and Trachsel.

 

Most of that is subtraction...getting rid of Jones and his contract, plus a guy in Piniella's doghouse (Ohman).

 

They were bidding on Matsui, which seems a peculiar choice given that they have multiple options in the middle infield who are not likely to be any worse than Matsui, including one of last year's signings in DeRosa. How is that reflective of an astute assessment of their needs.

 

A lot of people poo-pooed the Cubs' moves last offseason, and JB12 was one of the few to identify them as the main threat to win the division...kudos for that. But try as I might, I'm not seeing how their moves this year are such great shakes.

 

IMO, the single biggest thing to make a Cubs fan happy thus far is that the Brewers are weaker without Cordero. That comes at the price of strengthening the Reds, of course.