The story of Dontrelle Willis has not always been as grim as it is today. There was a time in which he was very highly regarded and he actually pitched well. That was then, this is now. Now, Dontrelle Willis cannot even throw the five innings necessary to be able to earn a win. He has pitched a total of 21.1 innings in his first five starts as a Diamondback (that is a little over 4 innings per start). Those 21 innings wouldn't be terrible if he had just given up hits (21) but he added on an absurd amount of walks (27) making his WHIP over 2.00.
This brings me to my question: why is he still in a major league rotation?
Honestly, there isn't a legitimate reason why he is still allowed to go out to mound every five days and pitch like a wild high-school reliever who has never heard of command. I have two theories that may help explain this odd phenomenon.
Theory 1: There just aren't enough good pitchers these days to fill 30 five-man rotations. This theory has some truth to it, but could easily be disproved if teams weren't afraid to call up young pitchers because "they aren't ready yet." My response to that is "would you rather have a veteran who can't get through the fifth inning or a rookie who has the ability to be dominant?"
I'll take the rookie.
Thoery 2: Willis is getting paid enough money to force teams to start him so they can get a return on their investment. This theory, while flawed (I realize that these theories aren't perfect, I am just brainstorming here people), has some truth to it. A team that drops multi-million dollar contracts on a player will want to see that player succeed so that they can earn that money back (via sponsorships, endorsements, winning championships, etc.). After a while, however, a team should realize that the veteran is a lost cause and bring up a youngster.
My advice to the D'backs: Give up on Dontrelle. While everyone wants to see the underdog succeed (including me, I actually really like Dontrelle) it makes no sense to keep him in your rotation. He is taxing your bullpen way to much and not providing anything positive in his starts. Call up someone from your farm system, maybe Barry Enright?
DTrain starts because the Dbacks basically get him for free. DET pays the 12 million owed in 2010 (last year of his contract) except a prorated share of the MLB minimum salary of $400 thousand, from the day the Dbacks got him. That means the Dbacks only pay around $268 thousand, peanuts to an MLB team. DTrain is colorful and seems like a good teammate, but is definitely done.
ReplyDeleteTheir best oitching prospect, jarrod Parker, was lost to TJ surgery last October. Bryan Augenstein has potential but he wasn't ready when they brought him up last year - ugly 7+ ERA.
Enright came up today to start and so far through 5IP, he's holding his own - 5K, 4BB, 1ER.
Let's hope the Dback pen doesn't implode as usual as he's winning 4-1!
I had no idea that Enright was pitching today. What a call.
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