Kuzul

If the most important MLB pre-game tradition is the shouting of “Play ball!” then the most exciting one is the ceremonial first pitch.

Sometimes the honored throwers are former players returning to their old stadiums. Sometimes they’re touring celebrities or visiting dignitaries, and sometimes they’re Average Joes with friends in high places.

The most memorable first pitches are the bad ones, from Barack Obama’s supposedly feminine delivery to Shania Twain’s pathetic little roller.

But on some rare occasions, the first pitches are actually pretty good.

Here is my list of the 10 best first pitches in baseball history, ranked on an Olympic scale of 0-10 based on accuracy and velocity, style, and other intangible qualities.

Begin Slideshow

Tradition dictates that the baseball season is unofficially divided into thirds.

In April and May, fans and coaches assess their teams’ rosters. June and July are spent reacting to their earlier observations—making trades and calling up prospects—and August and September are all about the hunt for October.

This week, each team will see the final outs of Game No. 54. And so, with Act II on the horizon, it’s time for Bleacher Report’s MLB Featured Columnists to revisit our division predictions.

With just eight weeks of baseball under our belts, there are plenty of flukes still waiting to be unexposed. But we’ve seen enough to start drawing some conclusions.

Thanks to everyone who voted and submitted analyses, and have a great Memorial Day!

Begin Slideshow

Houston fans know him as the man who carried the Astros to the World Series in 2005. MLB Showdown players know him as the guy with 11 on-base, 18+ homer, and only five outs on card.

The rest of the world knows him as Morgan Ensberg.

A former All-Star and the fourth-place finisher in the 2005 NL MVP voting, Ensberg burst onto the baseball scene in 2002 and was one of the top third basemen in the game from 2003-07. Now retired, he is trying his hand at broadcasting and writes a blog, Morgan Ensberg’s Baseball IQ .

He very kindly accepted my request for an interview last week, and I had the great honor of talking to him about the ups and downs of his career, the sabermetric revolution, and what life is like as a retired baseball player.

LJP: You had great years in ’03 and ’06, but there’s no question that your 2005 season was the best of your career.  Can you talk about that? Did you do anything differently? Was there a tangible feeling that you were playing at a new level, or did it seem like you were just doing the same things with different results?

ME: In 2005, the Astros organization didn’t believe that the team was going to win, so they simply let our “starting lineup” play. But besides that, I was really aggressive at the plate and I tried to swing as hard as I could.  

LJP: On the other side of the coin, things sort of fell apart for you in 2007. Do you know what happened? Did you feel like you were a step behind while you were playing, or did it seem more like plain old bad luck? If you were a manager, what would you have done to try and right your ship?

ME: 2007 was bad because I was more concerned about getting “booed” by the fans then concentrating on the game.  It wasn’t anything that had to do with my body or anything else.  I was physically fine.

LJP: Your guys’ run in 2005, that was just an amazing postseason. The 18-inning game with Atlanta, getting revenge on the Cardinals, even in the World Series there were some great games and you fulfilled every boy’s dream by hitting a home run on the national stage. How incredible did that feel? What was the most memorable part of that October?

ME: I want to tell you that it was the most incredible feeling ever.  But the reality is that we didn’t get to enjoy the experience.

It is about winning.  Sure, I had some time to look around before the game and think how cool this was.  But we are in the “fire” so to speak. 

LJP: Based on the theory that we are unable to see the whole story by simply watching games, the “sabermetric revolution” has changed the way fans think about baseball. As a player, you were even more entrenched in the heat of the game, and therefore, some would say, even more susceptible to losing sight of the big picture.

How did it feel to have your contributions quantified in stats like Ultimate Zone Rating and Wins Above Replacement? Did you ever pay attention to those numbers? Do you agree that a more detached approach is necessary to identify larger trends?

ME: I don’t think it matters how my stats are quantified.  However, it is important for players to understand what is expected of them.

As for larger trends, I agree in most instances.  But again, it is important to understand the situation the stats are presented.

For example, if you simply pull our black and white numbers and not understand the teams dynamic, you won’t get accurate answers.  You can use the “Garbage in, garbage out” mantra if you like. 

Ultimate zone rating still needs adjustments.  UZR takes into consideration “range” but that assumes that “range” is something that is needed.  I would agree that a certain amount of range is important, but teams will get better and better at positioning so a premium will be placed on ground balls hit right at the players. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Welcome to the Cleveland Indians Trading Post, a weekly segment meant to help my fellow Tribe fans sort out which of the few familiar faces left on the team won’t be around much longer.

This week’s potential trade bait is Mitch Talbot.

The basics

A second-round pick in the 2002 amateur draft, Talbot was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays last winter in exchange for Kelly Shoppach.

With less than 10 big-league innings under his belt before this season, Talbot, 26, qualifies as a rookie and will be under team control through at least 2015.

Why he has value

To a casual fan glossing over the sports page, Talbot looks like an ace.

He’s 6-3 for a losing team, posting a nifty 3.73 ERA over 60.1 innings of work. There isn’t a team in the game that wouldn’t eagerly make room in its rotation for a starter with those numbers.

He’s a bit of a late bloomer (he’ll turn 27 before the end of the World Series), but even if he doesn’t improve over the next couple years, a 3.73 ERA is a fantastic addition to the middle of any rotation.

He’ll make the minimum wage until he’s 29, and he’ll be under contract at a team-friendly price until he’s 32. So even a low-budget team could afford him, and even a franchise with no hope of contention this year could be interested.

Why he’s expendable

He isn’t nearly as good as he looks.

His walk rate is ugly—3.6 BB/9—but his strikeout rate—also 3.6 K/9—is even worse.

You read that right. Talbot is just as likely to walk an opposing hitter as he is to strike him out. It shouldn’t take a Bill James or Voros McCracken to see why this is troublesome.

So how does someone with a 5.23 FIP post an ERA a run-and-a-half lower? The answer lies in his Batting Average on Balls in Play.

If you’ve never heard of BABIP (also known as “hit rate,”) it’s exactly what it sounds like: the measure of how often opposing batters reach base when the ball is hit somewhere within the confines of the baseball diamond. It’s calculated the same way as a pitcher’s batting average-against, but doesn’t include at-bats ending in strikeouts, walks, or home runs.

The league average hit rate is right around .300. Individuals’ results can vary from season to season (based mostly on luck), but over the course of pitchers’ careers, their BABIP usually ends up right around the mean.

Talbot’s current BABIP is .235. In other words, opposing hitters have been roughly 21 percent less likely to have their batted balls land for hits against Talbot than against other pitchers.

Now, I think there’s merit to the argument that some pitchers have low hit rates because they are good at inducing weak contact. But no one is this good.

This kind of luck isn’t unprecedented, but it’s been eight years since any pitcher was able to sustain this kind of luck over a full season. In 2002, Braves southpaw Damian Moss overcame his poor peripherals (5.6 K/9, 4.5 BB/9) and found success (12-6, 3.42 ERA) thanks to a .234 BABIP.

Moss isn’t someone you’d be proud to be compared to. In 2003, when his hit rate increased to a still-lucky .292 (so much for having the skill to induce weak contact), his ERA ballooned to a nauseating 5.16.

By May 2004—just 19 months after his superficial statistics made him look like an ace—he was out of the majors for good.

Where he’d go

If he’s got my fellow Tribe fans—who watch him play on a regular basis—fooled, there’s a decent chance another franchise might be similarly gullible. Really, any team that doesn’t look too closely at the numbers would love to have him (of course, if a high school student can figure this out, I would hope the average GM would, too).

The first team that comes to mind at the words “statistically challenged” is the New York Mets. After all, these are the people whose scouts said they think Jason Bay is a better fielder than Matt Holliday.

As mentioned last week , the Mets’ pitching staff is a mess beyond a slowly declining Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey. They’d love a solid arm to help the back of their rotation, and the spacious confines of Citi Field would help cushion Talbot’s inevitable fall.

You can’t have a discussion of poor front office management without mentioning the Kansas City Royals. What else can you say about a terrible small-market team that’s spending $25 million on Jose Guillen and Gil Meche?

Talbot’s success so far would be the kind of thing Royals fans could get excited about. And it would take a special kind of stupid if the front office can’t put together a single contending club by the time Talbot’s contract expires in 2015.

Then there’s a team whose interest could stem more from pragmatism than stupidity: the Cincinnati Reds, who are have shocked the league by pulling even with the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central.

The Reds are oozing with young talent, but so far their promising pitchers haven’t realized their potentials. In order for the team to remain in the playoff hunt, they’ll have to shore up their staff; even when he comes down to earth, Talbot could be an improvement, and his groundball tendencies (49 percent GB rate) would be extra valuable in the bandbox that is Great American Ballpark.

What do you think? Should we trade Talbot? Where would he go, and who would we get in return?

More Trading Posts

May 13: Austin Kearns

May 20: Jake Westbrook

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

For fans of teams who have already given up on 2010, the most exciting time of the year is fast approaching: prospect season.

We’ve already seen call-ups like Starlin Castro, Ike Davis, and Justin Smoak. But that’s nothing compared to the surge of youngsters who will be called up in the next couple weeks.

This week, to celebrate the advent of our first glimpses at the game’s future, Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists have made our own lists of the top prospects (take that, Baseball America!).

This slide show is a list of the top prospects at each position, followed by a definitive Top 10 list (for the sake of simplicity and the possibility that some of these players would be called up between when voting began and now, anyone who has or would have rookie eligibility counts as a “prospect”).

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

Begin Slideshow

For many fans, interleague play is among the highlights of the baseball season.

When the Senior and Junior Circuits collide, the games are interesting, to say the least.

Teams have to adjust to different styles of play. Hitters face pitchers they’ve never seen before, and hurlers have to adjust their approaches against a whole different breed of batters.

Interleague play also gives us the chance to speculate about possible World Series previews.

But the best part of interleague play is the great match-ups it sets up.

The background drama is often overblown, but it truly seems as though each series has a story behind it.

Some match-ups put geographical rivals against each other. Sometimes stars face their old teams, and sometimes classic World Series rematches unfold.

Interleague play doesn’t really get going until the middle of June, but this weekend we got our first taste of it. Here’s a look at the 10 most compelling match-ups we saw, and how they turned out.

Begin Slideshow

For Grady Sizemore, a bad year got even worse when he was placed on the 15-day Disabled List yesterday.

Once the Tribe’s best hitter, Sizemore has posted a miserable .211/.271/.289 slashline in 33 games.

His once-prodigious power has dried up (no homers, .078 ISO) and he’s no longer a speed demon (four SBs). Even his defense has declined, as he’s posting a negative UZR (-1.5) for just the second time in his career.

His strikeout rate (27.3 percent) is at a career high, and his walk rate (6.3 percent) is at a career low. He’s clearly having trouble telling the difference between good pitchers (at which he’s swung only 59 percent of the time) and bad ones (he’s hacked at 33 percent of them).

Now, though, he’s officially out of commission.

When Sizemore’s back acted up during the first week of the season, I wondered aloud about which of seven potential candidates would be called to replace him if he was out of the lineup for an extended period of time.

Now that the hypothetical has become a reality, I thought it would be important to provide updates on his possible replacements.

Begin Slideshow

For those of you who’ve been living in a cave for the last few weeks, some crazy stuff is going on in Arizona.

A new state law requires police officers to check for immigration papers whenever they spot someone who “looks illegal.” Another new policy forbids people with accents from teaching English—I’m betting that won’t be enforced against Brooklyn inflections or Texas drawls—and bans ethnic studies in schools—because God forbid the victims of racial profiling should realize that they are an “oppressed minority.”

That’s why Major League Baseball must move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix.

We all have our own opinions, and I’m sure I’ll hear lots of them in the comments section. I’m guessing a fair number of people will chide me for mixing partisan politics with unifying, unbiased sport.

But that’s wrong. It’s not just that these laws are unjust; it is that they go against the principles for which the game stands.

You see, baseball does have an ideology. Embedded deep within the game’s traditions is the spirit of integration and harmony between people of all nations and colors, and Arizona’s actions are in direct conflict with this mentality.

Baseball knows no race or nationality. From Caracas to Johannesberg to Seoul, the game and its players are esteemed and idolized. Even Cuba begged the U.S. government to let its team travel to America for the World Baseball Classic.

Baseball doesn’t divide, it unites. In the Civil War, Union and Confederate troops would call ceasefires to play scrimmages (gives new meaning to the phrase “do or die”). And when President Bush wanted to send a symbol of patriotism after 9/11, he didn’t kick the first field goal at a Redskins game or shoot a ceremonial three-pointer before a Wizards game.

That’s why implicitly endorsing the state’s actions—as would be the case if Major League Baseball descends upon Phoenix for a week—is wrong.

This is a sport that looks to Civil Rights icon Jackie Robinson as the most revered player in its history. How would Robinson have felt about Major League Baseball being passive in this instance? In the words of Desmond Tutu, “If you are neutral in situations of injust, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

A quarter of MLB players are Hispanic. Albert Pujols and Felix Hernandez would have to be sure to bring their papers when they head to the Copper State, because they “look illegal.”

And why stop there? If, as the bill’s supporters claim, this isn’t about racial profiling, you’d better remember that immigrants don’t just come from the south. Ichiro, I’m going to need to see some ID.

Am I the only one who has a problem with this?

A 100-mph fastball is intimidating in any language, and a monster home run draws oohs and aahs from people of any culture. Why would Bud Selig & Co. even consider hosting the game’s brightest night from a place where such heterogeneous behavior is legally discouraged?

This is baseball’s chance to stand up for what it believes in. Because it’s not just the national pastime, it’s the international pastime.

In closing, I would like to ask those who differ from me ideologically to read up on the Mexican-American War. They’re stealing our jobs? How do you think we got Arizona?

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Welcome to the Cleveland Indians Trading Post, a new weekly segment to help my fellow Tribe fans sort out which of the few familiar faces we have left might not be around much longer.

This week’s potential trade candidate is Jake Westbrook.

The basics

After throwing six no-hitters (including a perfect game) in high school, Westbrook was taken by the Rockies in the first round of the 1996 draft. A journeyman before even reaching the big leagues, he was part of the Indians’ return for trading David Justice in 2000.

A consistently above average groundball master, Westbrook hasn’t posted an ERA outside the 4.17-to-4.49 range in a full season since 2004.

Having pitched just five games in 2008-9 and coming off Tommy John surgery, Westbrook is the Indians’ de facto ace this season. Through eight starts, he has gone 2-2 with a 4.27 ERA, a 6.0 K/9 rate (a career best), and a 3.9 BB/9 rate (a career worst).

And I bet you didn’t know that his 60.5-percent groundball rate is the best in the American League.

Why he’s expendable

As with Austin Kearns , Westbrook is expendable primarily because his contract expires after the season. The Indians don’t look like contenders this year, meaning his contributions don’t much matter for the remainder of his time he’s under Cleveland’s control.

Even if the Indians have the cash to re-sign Westbrook this winter, such a deal seems unlikely. With Hector Rondon, Yohan Pino, Carlos Carrasco, Nick Hagadone, and Scott Lewis (just to name a few) waiting in the wings, clogging up a rotation spot with a good-not-great starter for the foreseeable future would be an inefficient use of the Tribe’s limited payroll.

Oh, and moving some of his $11 million salary would be nice.

Why he has value

No functional team would call Jake Westbrook its ace, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be an attractive target for a contender in search of an extra arm for the stretch run.

His strikeout rate seems a little low, especially when coupled with a career-worst walk rate. But that’s not a fatal flaw—he has mastered the art of contact pitching, like a poor man’s Chris Carpenter or Tim Hudson.

Even the sabermetric statistics agree. Based on the theory that their success is largely due to luck, Fielding-Independent Pitching (FIP) and Expected Fielding-Independent Pitching are both designed to punish pitchers who let opposing batters make frequent contact. But Westbrook’s 4.18 career FIP and 4.01 career xFIP are actually both better than his 4.30 career ERA.

The secret to his success is his sinker. His groundball-inducing talent is a not a new trend; his 59.5-percent GB rate since 2002 ranks behind only Brandon Webb and Derek Lowe among pitchers with at least 500 innings pitched. Simply put, when batters hit the ball on the ground, it doesn’t go as far.

He’s never been great, and at 32, it’s unlikely that he will develop any new skills. But he’s been consistently good, and sometimes that’s more important.

He’s not a flashy ace who could change the balance of a pennant race. But you could do a lot worse than using Westbrook as a middle-of-the-rotation lieutenant.

Where he’d go

This really depends on whether the Indians are willing to eat some of Westbrook’s salary. They’d obviously prefer to send as much of the $11 million away as they can, but such a demand would limit the list of possible buyers.

Assuming the Indians stick to their monetary guns, the obvious trading partner would be the only other MLB team for which Westbrook has pitched: the New York Yankees.

After posting a 2.87 ERA with the Braves in 2009, Javier Vazquez has been a perfect illustration of the importance of consistency in 2010 because he doesn’t have any.

His 8.01 ERA has set off alarms in the Bronx; the Bombers could use a stable arm in the back of their rotation, and money is never an issue for George Steinbrenner. Plus, Westbrook’s worm-burning ability would be even more valuable in Yankee Stadium, where the allegedly unforeseen wind patterns make every fly ball a threat to leave the park.

The Yankees wouldn’t be the only Big Apple ballclub to be interested in Westbrook. As the flukiness of Mike Pelfrey’s early success is revealed, it is clear that the Mets’ rotation is in shambles behind a slowly declining Johan Santana.

If New York’s other team is serious about contending this year, Omar Minaya should be frantically searching for a way to stabilize the pitching staff. A consistent No. 2 starter would do wonders for the Mets’ rotation, and they’d surely be able to take on some of Westbrook’s salary.

Then there are the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose rotation consists of Hiroki Kuroda, Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billinglsey, and…not much else. The Bums are clawing their way up in the NL West, but an already-uphill battle will be all the harder with question marks in the back of the rotation.

The McCourts’ divorce has thrown the team’s finances into flux, but don’t forget that Los Angeles is a big-market team. They’ll probably be able to come up with the cash if the situation is urgent enough.

Of course, if the Indians are willing to eat most of his salary, there aren’t many contenders who wouldn’t love the boost he’d provide to their pitching staffs.

What do you think? Will Westbrook be traded? Where will he go, and who will we get in return?

More Cleveland Indians Trading Posts

May 13: Austin Kearns

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Every year there are a handful of players who shock us in the season’s opening weeks.

There are nobodies, rookies, and washed-up veterans who emerge as the game’s top players by May, while some of baseball’s biggest stars make their fans embarrassed to don their jerseys.

In this week’s Featured Columnist poll, 16 of Bleacher Report’s top baseball writers weighed in on which hot hands and slow starters we should begin idolizing or start worrying about, respectively.

This slideshow showcases 10 cold starters (the hot-starter results were published yesterday), each with a rating of “false alarm,” “he’s not this bad,” or “time to panic” (the results were curved, so the majority/plurality answer did not always win).

Instead of featuring two opposite positions for each player, each slide features either a “ball of sunshine” to explain why he or she thinks the player’s early success is legitimate, or a “little raincloud” to argue for why his hot start is unsustainable.

Half the players got optimists, half got pessimists.

For a subject in which there is often no obvious truth, I thought fewer, more developed analysis would be more interesting than a smattering of sound-bites.

Thank you to all who participated! I hope this is as fun to read as it was to put together.

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls.

If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

Begin Slideshow