To celebrate the fact that Opening Day is really, really close, I’m going to post something every day that has to do with the number of days until Opening Day. I meant to get this up yesterday, so we’ll combine numbers 14 and 13 into one post. Here we go:
FOURTEEN: Mark Quinn
Remember Mark Quinn? I sure do. He wore the number 14, back in the pre-John Buck days, so he is our Day 14 guy.
Sure, he’s been out of the Majors since June of 2002, but he still has something to do with the club, in my view: His inability to take a walk was simply astounding, much moreso than Jose Guillen’s 23 BBs last season (a 3.7% walk rate) or even Tony Pena’s 6 walks in 2008 (a 2.6% walk rate).
Quinn’s walk rate in 2001 was the same as TPJ’s last year – 2.6%. Remember that year? That was when Quinn went 241 plate appearances without an unintentional walk. It was also the year after he was 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting, and fans had actual hopes and dreams for him. So the way I see it, Quinn’s 2.6% is worse than TPJ’s 2.6% because of the different levels of expectations.
His 2001 line was .269/.298/.459, which is disastrous for a corner outfielder. (Unrelated side note: I coudn’t help but notice that’s fairly similar to Mike Jacobs’ 2008 line of .247/.299/.514. I present that information without further comment or agenda…I’m just sayin’.)
Royals primary right fielders since Mark Quinn (stats shown are from that specific season):
2003: Aaron Guiel .277/.346/.489
2004: Abraham Nunez* .226/.304/.335(!) and Matt Stairs .267/.345/.451
2005: Emil Q. Brown .286/.349/.455
2006: Reggie Sanders .246/.304/.425
2007: Mark Teahen .285/.353/.410
2008: Teahen .255/.313/.402 and Jose Guillen .264/.300/.438
Hrm. I hadn’t realized how depressing of an exercise this would be. Times really haven’t gotten better since Quinn. I didn’t realize how much I should have cherished having Emil Brown out there after all – I hated the guy, but wouldn’t you know it, he was the best-hitting RF the Royals have had in quite a while. Dang.
*the fact that Abraham Nunez tied for most starts in RF explains a lot about why that team was SO BAD.
THIRTEEN: Mark Teahen’s homers this year?
According to both CHONE and Marcel projections, Mark Teahen is supposed to hit 13 dingers this year. Other projection systems have similar numbers.
When I was putting together the RF numbers above, I couldn’t help but notice that Teahen’s 2007 – an offensive downgrade for him compared to the previous season – was actually one of the better seasons for a Royals RF in recent years, except for the lack of power.
And, of course, the question always comes up: Which Mark Teahen is the REAL Mark Teahen? Is he more like the 2006 one who could hit the ball with some authority, or is he the more meek hitter that has stepped up to the box since then?
Which is sort of the point of this countdown exercise – we get to find out VERY SOON. Two weeks from right now, Teahen himself can show us which version of himself is the genuine one (although it remains to be seen whether that’s with the Royals or someo ther team…), and we no longer have to have theoritcal debates about outlier seasons, and which type of season he’s more likely to have in 2009.
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