WhatchutalkinaboutWillis?
posted in 2008 Spring Training |Dontrelle Willis’ spring training came to an end today. Most — all judging by the blogs — people would say that was a pretty disastrous first-impression of a pitcher who has seen his effectiveness drop steadily since finishing runner-up in the National League Cy Young race three years back.
“I just hope that it clicks when the bell rings,” Willis said. “That’s the only thing you can be concerned about. If it’s not, we’ll continue to work on it. It is what it is.” (as quoted by Tigers.com’s Jason Beck)
You don’t have to tell any of us not to put too much weight on spring stats. Pitchers might be working on certain things or just getting their work in. Today, for instance, Jim Leyland said he left Willis in for 95 pitches to get his arm some work whereas he would have taken him out earlier during the regular season. That’s a relief, because Willis walked four batters and gave up seven hits. The concern is this followed up another four-walk performance. For the spring, he walked 15 in fewer than 17 innings.
A glance at Willis past few seasons shows us his struggles began two years ago when he jumped from 55 walks in 236 innings to 83 in 223 innings. Last season, he walked 87 in 205 innings. Or to put it another way, he saw his walks per plate appearance jump from 5.7% in 2005 to 9.2% in 2007, according to FirstInning.com stats. (Here’s the graph, and it shows his BB/PA actually improved during the course of 2007). Meanwhile his strikeout rate dropped from 17.7% to 15.5%. Not a huge dropff, but a dropoff.
One theory put forth for that is the defense Willis had stunk. So maybe he thought he had to do it all (Despite his claims. But who is going to come out and say “Hey, my teammates sucked”? Some things, athletes just can’t and shouldn’t say, and that’s one of them!) The thinking behind that is his batting average on balls in play went up from .305 to .328, meaning, if the ball stayed in the park, 33% of the time, it resulted in the baserunner being safe. (Here’s a graph of the resulting ERA. I don’t like the direction it was trending!) The thought was, in Detroit, Willis will know his defense has his back and he’ll pitch to the strike zone more. That and he should have a lead more often than not with that offense. In spring, it’s hard to test the theory that the defense is better, because it’s always changing. Same for the offense. But why would Willis even think about those factors in spring? You’d think he wouldn’t.
So that leads us to a second worry that Ian brought up.
Is Willis injured? He said he wasn’t feeling 100% in Florida last year and that helped account for his poor performance. If he was hurt, maybe he’s walking guys in years past and this spring because he just can’t get the ball to go where he wants it to. That’s a legitimate fear at this point, I have to think.
But here’s the thing. Don’t worry. Be happy. Baseball is back for real on March 31. Until the regular season starts, we really don’t have evidence to support either theory. So no use in getting worked up over it, right?
Sphere It
I’m of the opinion Dontrelle will be just fine. It’s still March, he’s still adjusting to not having to be the ace or the second best pitcher in the rotation, and it’s probably a bit too early to throw him under the bus just yet. Check out my website to get a full post about why Tiger fans shouldn’t be worried.