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Mitch Talbot's big break was being named later.
You've heard of that guy, the baseball player who's shipped to another team at some point to complete a trade. Joining the Cleveland Indians in December sentenced him to last place, but also gave Talbot the pitching opportunity in the major leagues that he sought after seven seasons in the minors.
Becoming the player who was named later — traded from Tampa Bay for catcher Kelly Shoppach — fits nicely into the Cedar City native's story. In some ways, former teammates and coaches barely recognize this version of Mitchell R. Talbot, and he's just now finding himself.
His 5-3 record and 3.88 ERA through eight starts as a 26-year-old rookie is evidence that Talbot just needed a chance to prove to himself and others what he could do.
"It's one thing to believe it and another thing to know it," he said recently from Cleveland.
The Indians are not good. They would be worse without Talbot, who was credited with five of the team's first 14 wins this year. As the only current starting pitcher in the majors to attend high school in Utah, he's living up to the promise that made him a second-round draft choice in 2002.
Affectionately described by his friend Jason Gillins as "a big goofball" in those days, Talbot has matured on the mound. "He doesn't get frustrated; he doesn't show emotion," said Gillins, Talbot's offseason hunting partner and former American Legion teammate. "He's grown up a lot."
Talbot always knew where he wanted to go. His father, Art, loves to tell the story of a young Mitch criticizing Little League teammates for clowning around. When a coach told him to back off, the kid is said to have responded, "I can't afford not to take it seriously. I'm going to play Major League Baseball."
Talbot cannot verify that tale, although he recalls having another coach detail the "staggering" odds of reaching that level, and wanting to overcome them.
It helped that he was born with a gifted right arm. As the youngest of six children, "He got most of the genes," said his brother Jay, a baseball teammate. He remembers the stunned reactions when Mitch threw the ball 91 mph in a skills contest the summer after his sophomore year at Canyon View High School in Cedar City.
"Back in the day," Jay Talbot said, "he didn't have the work ethic, as much as straight talent."
That was enough to impress pro scouts, even if he was inconsistent while pitching for a 5-14 team as a senior in a competitive region with mostly St. George schools. He went 3-5 with a 3.09 ERA, once giving up six runs in the first inning against Dixie. Even then, he threw a clever change-up to complement his fastball, but was easily flustered by umpires' calls and errors behind him.
"He's such a competitor, and sometimes when things didn't go his way, he'd get sidetracked and forget the purpose," said DeLynn Corry, a former minor leaguer who was Canyon View's pitching coach. "The stuff's always been there, even as a high school senior. For the mental side of it to catch up with the physical side, it has been really fun to watch."
Signed by Houston for a $550,000 bonus late in the summer of '02, Talbot launched his pro career the following summer in rookie ball at Martinsville, Va., and began learning how to pitch ("I could always throw hard; I didn't necessarily know where it was going," he says, half-kiddingly).
Talbot steadily climbed through the minors, being traded to Tampa Bay as a Double-A player in 2006 and posting 13 wins in both '07 and '08 at Triple-A Durham.
While he made a September appearance for a Tampa Bay team that would play in the '08 World Series, he was stuck in a pitching-rich organization. So after an '09 season in which an elbow injury limited his work, he welcomed the trade that eventually gave him a spot in Cleveland's rotation.
"I always believed that I could [succeed], or I wouldn't have spent all that time in the minors," Talbot said.
The results of Talbot's sticking with it are enjoyable for those who have followed him along the way. "It has just been an absolute ball," his father said.
And as a player to be named later, a late bloomer and a rookie at 26, Talbot may just be getting started. "I think he's going to be in the game a long time, I really do," Corry said.
Mitch Talbot
Born • Oct. 17, 1983, Cedar City.
Drafted • Second round, 2002 by Houston; signed by Astros scout Doug Deutsch, who also signed Taylorsville catcher John Buck (now with Toronto).
Traded • July 2006 by Houston to Tampa Bay; December 2009 by Tampa Bay to Cleveland.
First major league win • Complete game April 16 vs. the Chicago White Sox, defeating Mark Buehrle while allowing six hits and one earned run.
Utah distinction • Talbot is one of 11 pitchers from Utah high schools to appear in the major leagues since 1980, when Bruce Hurst made his Boston debut; he's one of two Utahns now pitching in the big leagues, along with Houston reliever Brandon Lyon (Taylorsville).
The now-famous five • Talbot's big-league success enhances the prep credentials of the five Class 3A pitchers who made The Tribune's 2002 all-state first team ahead of him: Snow Canyon's Matt Lovelady, Lehi's Matt Ratliff, Park City's Brandon Rogers, Bear River's Jayson Madsen and Carbon's Troy Grundy.
Next start • Tonight vs. White Sox.