Kuzul

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 hot starters (look for the cold-starter results tomorrow), each with a rating of “the real deal,” “expect some regression,” or “Mayday! Mayday!” (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 analyses 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!

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In real life, if you buy a product that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, you can return it. If you purchase a blender that doesn’t mix food, or a lawnmower that doesn’t cut grass, you can usually get a refund or exchange it for one that works.

Baseball teams don’t have that luxury. When GMs sign players, the name of the game is caveat emptor—buyer beware.

If a team signs a player expecting him to contribute 15 wins or 30 homers a year and he doesn’t deliver, there’s no way to return him for store credit, and he still gets paid like a star.

The following are the 10 players who have given their respective teams the worst returns on their hefty investments this season. Some have been merely disappointing, some have been used inefficiently, and some have actually been worse than a replacement-level scrub.

To help illustrate just how overpaid these players are, each slide contains the player’s FanGraphs Salary Valuation (an estimate of how much a player’s production is worth, based on Wins Above Replacement) for the 2010 season, projected over 162 games. Some of them have been so bad that they’ve actually provided their teams with negative value.

Congratulations to the teams whose players aren’t on this list!

Thanks to Cot’s Baseball Contracts for the salary figures.

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By now, Cleveland Indians fans have grown accustomed to watching their favorite players being shipped out of town around the trade deadline.

Casey Blake, Paul Byrd, Mark DeRosa, Ben Francisco, Ryan Garko, Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, Carl Pavano, and C.C. Sabathia have all been shipped off between late June and early August the last couple years—and that doesn’t count winter exports Franklin Gutierrez and Kelly Shoppach.

Introducing 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 Austin Kearns.

The basics

A former top prospect in the Reds’ system, Kearns had a fantastic season (5.0 Wins Above Replacement in just 107 games) as a rookie in 2002. After posting an impressive 7.8 WAR from 2006-07, the injury-prone outfielder suffered elbow, foot, and thumb problems in 2008-09, and his production dropped off the table completely (.633 OPS over those two seasons).

The Indians signed him to a Minor League deal in the offseason. His contract is for one year and $750,000.

Why he’s expendable

For the Indians this season, any player signed to a one-year deal will have his contract expire before the team has a chance of contending. Once we officially wave the white flag, it doesn’t make sense to keep anyone who’s on his way out for a few extra months when we could trade him at midseason and get some building blocks for the future in return.

There’s a chance the Indians would re-sign him in the offsesaon, but it doesn’t seem likely. The Indians couldn’t afford to sign any dependable players last winter, and while having Kerry Wood and Jake Westbrook off the books next year will free up some payroll, there’s no guarantee that Larry Dolan will be willing to open his wallet to extend an expensive player.

Even if the Indians do decide to flex some financial muscle in the offseason, the Tribe has too many talented young outfielders to justify clogging up a spot with a more expensive veteran. Unless Grady Sizemore’s drastic meltdown proves to be a permanent collapse, he and Shin-Soo Choo have two of Cleveland’s three outfield spots locked down.

If Kearns is permanently added to the cast, what does that mean for Michael Brantley? Jordan Brown would have even less of an opportunity to prove himself in the majors. Trevor Crowe wouldn’t get the chance to rediscover wherever potential he once had. Nick Weglarz would have trouble finding space in the lineup when he eventually gets the call, and Matt LaPorta would surely lose playing time, at least indirectly.

Why he has value

The aforementioned injury and production problems seem to be behind him. Kearns has forced his way into the Indians’ starting lineup this year, hitting .346 with a .954 OPS, a .422 wOBA (a weighted on-base average which reflects a hitter’s value), and 16 RBI in 22 games. That’s certainly enough to interest an inquiring GM.

And even while his bat has floundered in recent years, his glove has remained solid. He’s posted a positive UZR (ultimate zone rating, which essentially shows whether a player’s defense is above or below average) in eight of his nine MLB seasons.

Over that time span, he’s saved an estimated 57.1 runs—ninth best among outfielders and better than noted defense stalwarts Mike Cameron (47.0) and J.D. Drew (43.4).

Where he’d go

You’d be hard-pressed to find a team that wouldn’t be interested in Kearns at this point. If he can maintain something close to his current level of production, it’s hard not to expect a bidding war, and given his bargain-basement salary, even a low-budget contender might give up a king’s ransom in return.

With the worst team wOBA (.291) in the league, Seattle seems a likely suitor. In addition to giving the Mariners a much-needed offensive upgrade, the team’s starting outfielders would combine for a 43.2 career UZR/150 (ultimate zone rating per 150 games) rating; surely that would make Jack Zduriencik drool.

Their division rivals, the Athletics, could also use a lineup upgrade; thought before the season to have a glut of good outfielders, Ryan Sweeney is the only one who has been even a slightly above-average hitter (.328 wOBA) so far. And the stingy Moneyball-ers could afford Kearns’ six-digit salary.

Or perhaps Kearns would be best suited in Atlanta. Identified as a clear pitching-heavy team before Opening Day, most fans agreed that the Braves could contend if they could muster a respectable offensive showing.

Atlanta’s mediocre 16-18 record is a reflection of the team’s poor .312 wOBA. The pathetic Nate McClouth (.266 wOBA) has been their second-best outfielder to date; Kearns would do the Braves a lot of good.

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

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Admit it: you’ve started thinking about next winter’s free agent market.

It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Baseball’s Hot Stove is boiling all year long; it’s only natural to be curious about who will sign where.

This week, the Bleacher Report Featured Columnists are here to assure you that you are not alone.

For this survey, I asked each respondent to say how much money and how many years eight big names should get when they hit the open market in six months. When averaged together, they look like pretty realistic deals.

In addition, I asked each FC to guess which team each player will sign with, and speculate on how each’s real-life contract will look relative to his true value. Finally, a “Santa” and a “Scrooge” for each player weighed in on why he deserves a huge payday or a scrimpy salary, respectively—some of the differences are really interesting.

Thank you to everyone who participated, especially those who submitted commentary at the last minute!

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!

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In 1997, the movie Gattaca taught us that “there is no gene for the human spirit.” At the start of every MLB season, we learn that there isn’t a statistic for it, either.

As per usual, countless so-called experts—myself included—spent the weeks leading up to Opening Day breaking down the statistical projections and prognosticating about how the divisions would shape up in 2010. And like always, the early-season results have most of us looking like idiots.

If you had told me on April 5th that, five weeks later, the New York Mets would have a better record than the Boston Red Sox, or that the Pittsburgh Pirates would be more successful than the Seattle Mariners, I would have laughed you out of the room. But that’s how the cookie has crumbled so far.

Here’s a look at five teams who, to varying degrees of explicability, have laughed in the face of their predicted mediocrity over the last five weeks.

Included in each slide are a comparison between the team’s preseason projected ranking and its current rank (by winning percentage), a breakdown of a breakout player whose surprising success has mirrored his team’s performance, and an analysis of each team’s chances of reaching the postseason.

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The “Susan G. Komen for the Cure” breast cancer awareness organization condemned Oakland Athletics pitcher Dallas Braden for his perfect game in a press release issued Sunday night.

Continuing a tradition begun last year, Major League Baseball celebrated Mother’s Day by teaming up with the Komen Foundation for its “Going to Bat Against Cancer” Initiative, according to an article on MLB.com.

“When we said we were ‘going to bat against cancer,’ we wanted to step up to the plate and hit a home run,” said Komen spokeswoman, Laurie Jupiter, “or at least work the count and take a walk. What kind of cold-hearted scoundrel does it take to throw a perfect game?”

“What kind of message does that send?”

The press release emphasized the imagery of the Tampa Bay Rays’ special pink bats flail helplessly against Braden’s unhittable offerings, and their “pinkified” uniforms walking dejectedly back to the dugout after each and every at-bat.

“He should be ashamed of himself,” Jupiter said, “We will not strike out against cancer.”

Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig was quick to respond to the controversy.

“Braden’s actions were indefensible,” he said, “His malevolence is nauseating, and he ought to be ashamed of himself.”

Selig added that he would begin to plan disciplinary action against Braden Monday morning. When asked to speculate about the severity of the punishment or whether it would come in the form a fine or a suspension, Selig was noncommittal, saying only, “there’s gonna be trouble.”

“What is [Braden] trying to prove?” Jupiter asked, “What a despicable human being.”

Braden declined to comment.

In other news, a Cleveland, Ohio, teenager who took Braden out of his fantasy baseball team’s starting lineup for this week’s scoring period suffered a massive heart attack upon hearing about Braden’s accomplishment.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

I didn’t have high hopes for the Cleveland Indians this season.

I understood that this year was about seasoning our young core of prospects and sorting out our jumbled rotation. I even opposed the few veteran signings we made out of fear that their presence would jeopardize our rookies’ playing time.

I accepted that we would be losers in 2010 because I know that we can be winners by the end of the Mayan Calendar. It’s not as fun as rooting for the Yankees or Red Sox, but we’re better off than most other small-market teams.

And yet, the Indians’ complete ineptitude this season (10-17) has made me want to pull my hair out.

It’s not the growing pains that bother me.

I know that Michael Brantley isn’t really a .156 hitter; Baseball America called him the best contact hitter in the organization, and besides, he hit .313 in a brief big-league stint last year. He’ll find his groove soon enough.

I don’t mind that Matt LaPorta has yet to homer. This is the man with the .256 career minor-league ISO. No one doubts that he’ll develop into a prodigious power hitter.

Nor am I particularly bothered by Chris Perez’ relative failure as the Tribe’s closer. You can’t just throw a 24-year-old into a high-pressure role and expect things to instantly click.

If these young whippersnappers were the only ones struggling, I wouldn’t think twice about it.

What burns me is that the team’s established veterans are playing just as poorly—if not more so.

Let’s start with Russell Branyan, the only winter signee to be earning a seven-digit salary and the reason Brantley has been banished to Triple-A. Branyan is what’s known as a “three true outcomes” hitter because, over the course of his career, 57 percent of his plate appearances have ended with either a walk, a strikeout, or a home run.

Here’s a riddle: what do you call it when a hitter like that loses his plate discipline and power?

Don’t waste your time trying to come up with a witty response—the answer is, “Russell Branyan in 2010.”

His walk rate (8.3 percent) is the lowest it’s been since his 11-game stint as a rookie in 1999, and he has exactly as many home runs as my grandma (zero).

To be fair, a back injury kept him out for the first couple weeks, but even 10 games is too long for someone like Branyan to go without a long ball.

To compensate for slacking in those two categories, Branyan has increased his whiff rate to almost 40 percent, which would be the worst in the league if he had enough at-bats to qualify.

He’s started hacking away at garbage (36.4 percent O-Swing rate, compared to 23.8 percent for his career) while actually swinging at fewer good ones (73.5 percent, normally 77.3 percent). That’s not much of a silver lining.

Branyan isn’t the only slugger to have plate discipline and power problems. Supposedly healthy after missing a third of the 2009 season, Grady Sizemore has looked terrible in 2010. A former five-tool stud, Sizemore has no homers and just two stolen bases to compliment a .220/.282/.320 slashline.

His collapse isn’t surprising given that he’s seemingly lost his eye (6.4 percent walk rate, the worst he’s ever had) and patience (27.0 percent, also a career worst).

If you think Branyan’s pitch selection has been screwy, Sizemore’s is even worse: he’s swinging at 32.1 percent of what would be balls (compared to 17.9 percent in 2009) while taking 41 percent of pitches in the strike zone.

Then there’s Jhonny Peralta. Never a particularly popular player to begin with, Peralta has been driving Cleveland fans up a wall in 2010. He’s batting just .216 with a miserable .699 OPS (believe it or not, that’s actually better than last year).

Yet Indians fans would rather see him holding a bat than a glove. According to UZR, Peralta (-5.0) is the second-worst third baseman in baseball and the third-worst in the league. He has the worst range (-6.7) of any third baseman, and the second-worst in all of baseball .

I won’t exhaustively eviscerate every flounderer on the team, but I would like to offer shout-outs to Travis Hafner for his .213 batting average, Jake Westbrook for his 5.74 ERA, and Fausto Carmona, David Huff, and Mitch Talbot for their collective 0.93 K/BB ratio.

I’d also like to express my thanks to Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Austin Kearns for being the only players on the team hitting better than .250 .

This isn’t Sparta. This is just madness.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

There’s something quite odd about Derek Jeter.

I don’t mean the fact that he’s seemingly ageless, or that he’s actually a somewhat-likeable guy despite being the captain of the most evil group of players ever to walk onto a baseball field.

I am referring to the fact that the numbers Jeter has accrued so far this season simply don’t make any sense.

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t seen Jeter play very much this year. As a Red Sox fan from Cleveland, I don’t get many opportunities to see the Yankees, and I don’t particularly care about them unless they’re losing.

Looking at his statistics, though, it’s clear that something really weird is going on.

For starters, Jeter has suddenly become a power hitter. He’s on pace for 26 home runs—he’s never hit more than 24 in a season—and 130 RBI (he’s reached triple-digits only once in his career). His ISO (.176, compared to his .142 career mark) is his best since 2004, and he’s slugging over .500 for the first time this millennium.

The obvious explanation for this would be that Jeter is hitting more fly balls, and that the supposedly unforeseen wind patterns at Yankee Stadium (come on, does anyone really think that was an accident?) are assisting his power surge. You’d be half-right; all of his homers so far have come at home, where he holds a comically and unsustainably inflated 58.6 percent HR/FB rate.

But the fly ball thing? Totally wrong. While almost half (44 percent) of Jeter’s hits have been in the air over his career, just 29 percent of his batted balls in 2010 have been fly balls or line drives. His 71 percent ground-ball rate is by far the highest in the majors; no one else with a GB rate over 60 percent has more than two homers. So basically, Jeter doesn’t hit fly balls except when they turn into home runs.

Confused yet? It gets weirder.

Never a terribly patient hitter to begin with (9.0 percent career BB rate), Jeter has taken just five free passes so far for a miserable walk rate of 4.6 percent.

The reason for this is obvious: he’s swinging at garbage. Jeter has chased less than 20 percent of pitches out of the zone since tracking began in 2002. This year, he’s swinging at roughly a third (33 percent) of what would otherwise be called balls.

In other words, he’s about 60 percent more likely to take a hack at a bad pitch than he normally is. That’s roughly the difference between Kevin “Greek God of Walks” Youkilis and Yuniesky “Worst Player in Baseball” Betancourt.

You’d think that such a change would have an inflationary effect on his strikeout numbers, right?

Wrong. Just like his walk rate, his strikeout rate (8.8 percent) is by far the lowest of his career and just over half his overall mark (16.8 percent).

How is this possible? Despite the fact that Jeter is swinging at more bad pitches than ever, he’s making contact at the best rate (88.4 percent) of his career.

You read that correctly—he’s putting the bat on more balls than ever in spite of (or maybe, somehow, because of) the collapse of his plate discipline.

Does your brain hurt? Don’t be alarmed; that indicates only that you are still sane.

Let’s recap: at age 34, Jeter has found his power stroke while simultaneously hitting more grounders than Major League’s Willie Mays Hayes. Meanwhile, his plate discipline has gone down the toilet, but he’s making the best contact of his career.

I hope someone who has watched Jeter more than I have would be able to provide some answers. But from here, it seems that something is rotten in the state of New York.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Welcome to the second half of this week’s Featured Columnist Poll, an early All-Star vote.

As stated in yesterday’s AL results slideshow, for this survey, I asked my peers to select only the players who have earned spots based on their performances so far this season—not to predict who will make the team or choose players who they think will have earned spots by July.

For each position I have included the full vote totals, and asked a different respondent to write a synopsis for each winner.

Thank you to everyone who voted and submitted commentary!

Note: So as not to clog people’s inboxes, I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who participated in one of the two 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!

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Every year, fans complain that the wrong people are named MVP or elected into the Hall of Fame. We whine, we argue, and we say we could do better.

The All-Star vote is our chance to prove ourselves, yet every year we demonstrate why democracy doesn’t work. Last year’s winners, for example, included Josh Hamilton, who when the polls closed was hitting just .240 with six homers and had missed more than half his team’s games.

This week’s FC Poll is a mock All-Star vote, based on the theory that Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists are somewhat more rational than a group of average fans. Of course, there were some surprising players named here too, and this time I’ve included the full vote totals for each category so all the interesting picks can be seen.

For this survey, I asked my peers to select only the players who have earned spots based on their performances so far this season—not to predict who will make the team or choose players who they think will have earned spots by July.

Thank you to everyone who voted and submitted commentary!

Note: So as not to clog people’s inboxes, I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who participated in one of the two 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!

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