Dontrelle Willis posted a win today in the 5-1 win over the Blue Jay’s in\u00c2\u00a0the Grapefruit League. \u00c2\u00a0 In a way, this scares me slightly.\u00c2\u00a0 I was beating the Willis drum when he was signed back in winter of 2007 but it has been well documented since then about his anxiety issues, lack of performance, inconsistencies\u00c2\u00a0and general wast of money.\u00c2\u00a0 I will not bore you with a rehashing – check any other Detroit Tigers Blog, Team Website or baseball stat site for more info.\u00c2\u00a0 I quickly abandon my Willis drum when his performance went south.\u00c2\u00a0 I joined the “wow that was a mistake signing”\u00c2\u00a0 train promptly.\u00c2\u00a0 And over the last two seasons I have had no reason to abandon my comfy seat on that train.<\/p>\n
However, this spring has seen a sort of revitalization of th D-Train.\u00c2\u00a0 He has been interesting if not entertaining to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 This leads me to a dilema – Will Dontrelle Willis take the #5 starter position in the Tigers Rotation?\u00c2\u00a0 Who else should be there if he does get it?<\/p>\n
The first three positions in the 5 man rotation are pretty shored up – 1)Verlander (duh..) 2) Porcello and 3) Scherzer.\u00c2\u00a0 But from there, the waters get murky, situations aren’t so cut and dry and things get all confusing and backwards.\u00c2\u00a0 With Armando Galarraga’s untimely exit back down to the Toledo Mud Hens – there stands\u00c2\u00a03 contenders for the two remaining slots\u00c2\u00a0– Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis.\u00c2\u00a0 All 3 of them have their strengths and weaknesses, all 3 of them are costing the Tigers payroll an unnecessary amount of money, and all 3 of them have a pretty decent shot statistically.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is how the spring training stats roll out for these 3 contenders as of 3\/25\/10:<\/p>\n
Jeremy Bonderman – 1-1 with a 6.92 ERA<\/p>\n
Nate Robertson – 2-0 with a 3.68 ERA<\/p>\n
Dontrelle Willis – 2-0 with a 1.20 ERA<\/p>\n
I’m not one for heavy stats talk and I know that there are far more factors involved in this decision than just the ones I posted above, but\u00c2\u00a0they will suffice in helping me make my point a little clearer.\u00c2\u00a0 Bonderman has a history (a long and sordid, ugly\u00c2\u00a0history) of injury and extended trips to the DL.\u00c2\u00a0 He hasn’t pitched a solid season since 2006\u00c2\u00a0 The DL has a reserved seat with his name on it at the beginning of each season.\u00c2\u00a0 So far this season he looks good, not fabulous but good.\u00c2\u00a0 He finally looks healthy and the velocity is starting to rise back up to acceptable levels.\u00c2\u00a0 Above all, he is consistent. A worthy candidate in my opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 He knows it put up or shut up time and I think he is using that for fuel in his fire.<\/p>\n
Robertson has been sub standard in his pitching for some years now.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the pitching\u00c2\u00a0staff \u00c2\u00a0bulldog back in the fabulous world series season of 2006; a pleasure to watch.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But since then, he has been as exciting to\u00c2\u00a0watch as (sorry D.C fans) a Washington Nationals game.\u00c2\u00a0 At time he looked sharp and controlled, other times it looked like he was slinging wet bologna over the plate.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00c2\u00a0was bounced from starter to bullpen and back last year and proved that the bullpen\u00c2\u00a0was not his forte.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0So far this spring he has looked confident and positive – something we\u00c2\u00a0didn’t see one iota of last year.\u00c2\u00a0 His stats so far are good and with more innings under his belt his\u00c2\u00a0ERA would definitely stand the chance of coming down lower.\u00c2\u00a0 A worthy candidate of the last spot.<\/p>\n
Now Dontrelle, the reason for this post.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0To look at his spring training stats alone for\u00c2\u00a0Grapefruit league 2010 would lead one to believe that he is just lights out, strike em’ out fabulous.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0You would think that\u00c2\u00a0all things are corrected, his\u00c2\u00a0anxiety issues have subsided and his\u00c2\u00a0past history long\u00c2\u00a0forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 A 1.20 ERA is FABULOUS (at any time of the year with more than one game under your belt).\u00c2\u00a0Seeing this,\u00c2\u00a0I was ready to jump back on that D-Train and ride\u00c2\u00a0again (I know, I know, insert your fairweather fan comment here).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But after watching today’s pitching performance against the\u00c2\u00a0Blue Jays\u00c2\u00a0I think\u00c2\u00a0I’m going to stay on the “wow that was a mistake signing” train for a little longer.<\/p>\n
First batter – walked… Second batter – walked… oh lord this is not good – commencing panic attack now.\u00c2\u00a0 This is down right scary.\u00c2\u00a0 Third batter – strike out.\u00c2\u00a0 Ok, panic attack subsided but this still set my mind in motion.\u00c2\u00a0 Detroit has a history of\u00c2\u00a0 pitchers who like to give their fans little cardiac episodes (see “Roller Coaster” Todd Jones, “Heart Attack” Fernando Rodney) and Willis is staking his claim on that list.\u00c2\u00a0 After 4 rocky innings – Willis managed only one earned run with 4 walks – not fabulous.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bonderman and Robertson have been showing signs of steady progress throughout the 2010 Grapefruit League.\u00c2\u00a0 At times it seems as if Willis is more lucky than good.\u00c2\u00a0 Personally I think he has worked hard to regain his past Marlins flash, but it is much harder\u00c2\u00a0to fix a mental anxiety issue than it is to heal a sore tendon, broken bone or groin pull.\u00c2\u00a0Bones heal\u00c2\u00a0muscles and\u00c2\u00a0tendons repair at an expected rate – mental issues have no set time table for healing. Each individual is different, there is no “predictable” outcome, inconsistent amongst every individual who is unfortunate to suffer.<\/p>\n
Personally I’m rather upset that it came to this point, as Willis should have been let go or bought out two years ago, then we wouldn’t be in this situation at all.\u00c2\u00a0 If Willis continues to pitch the way he has been, I think his sporadic tendencies and wild outings would be more suitable for the bullpen where he could be pulled if things go bad in a hurry.\u00c2\u00a0 Starters need to have consistency.\u00c2\u00a0 Without consistency starting pitchers can never be expected to go deep into innings to save the bullpen staff and keep them fresh.\u00c2\u00a0 Dontrelle has proven that he has worked hard and he is on the right track with his anxiety recovery, but inconsistency could be the end of his career.\u00c2\u00a0 And for a team with hopes of a 2006 repeat, inconsistency in the starting rotation is no acceptable. I wish him the best,\u00c2\u00a0it’s hard to struggle at your job, no matter what job you have – \u00c2\u00a0but I wish the D-Train would depart Detroit in the\u00c2\u00a0very near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dontrelle Willis posted a win today in the 5-1 win over the Blue Jay’s in\u00c2\u00a0the Grapefruit League. \u00c2\u00a0 In a way, this scares me slightly.\u00c2\u00a0 I was beating the Willis drum when he was signed back in winter of 2007 but it has been well documented since then about his anxiety issues, lack of performance, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":352,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5532,2119,2842,3253,5524,5529,3074,270,5526,3302,4442,3767,3301,3300,5534,5525,5527,5533,85,5167,1441,5531,560,5535,5523],"class_list":["post-3713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-amount-of-money","tag-armando-galarraga","tag-baseball-stat","tag-blue-jay","tag-comfy-seat","tag-contenders","tag-d-train","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-dilema","tag-dontrelle-willis","tag-grapefruit-league","tag-inconsistencies","tag-jeremy-bonderman","tag-nate-robertson","tag-porcello","tag-revitalization","tag-scherzer","tag-sordid-history","tag-spring-training","tag-strengths-and-weaknesses","tag-toledo-mud-hens","tag-toledo-mudhens","tag-two-seasons","tag-verlander","tag-wast"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}