After two and a half years of  expectations, hope, patience, and frustration the Tigers have finally cut bait with Dontrelle Willis as he has been designated for assignment to make room for Max Scherzer. Is this decision a move towards less tolerance for failure, or just a matter of “enough is enough”?

It may seem curious to ask the question about less tolerance for failure given Dontrelle’s track record. There have been season long DL stints for knees and anxiety. There has been additional coaching and stays down at A ball to get him out of the spot light. There was the decision to bring him north this season despite the fact he hadn’t out-pitched his competitors in spring training. Through it all the Tigers stuck with him and his large contract, until last night.

Expectations

I think it’s fair to say the Tigers gave Willis every chance. While I don’t disagree with the move at all, the timing itself is a little surprising. After two seasons of implosions, Willis has an ERA, a FIP, and an xFIP that are all under 5.00. Not great or even good, but at least on the brink of serviceable. Given the contract it is disappointing to say the least, but he’s getting paid regardless.

Willis has at times looked good and at times looked out of sorts. Sometimes within the same game, sometimes even within the same inning. But the fact he looked good at times exceeded my expectations. His strikeout rate is the highest it’s been since 2003 and his walk rate is the best of his Tigers career (a still miserable 6 BB per 9).

So my question is, what exactly were the Tigers hoping for out of Willis this season? Dombrowski’s comments on the matter are rather gray, and I doubt we’re getting the whole story. Given his entire career arc, I think Willis is pitching as well as could have reasonably been expected.

Quicker to move

Here’s where I make a logical leap. I hope you can join me because it may be encouraging. Given the Willis DFA, the Sizemore and Scherzer demotions, and the commitment to Brennan Boesch is it out of line to think that the organization is looking to be more swift in swapping out underperformers and maximizing talent on the 25 man roster?

There are still gaping holes at catcher and Adam Everett has been awful as well. With the catcher situation there isn’t an upgrade readily available. With Everett he’s receiving less and less playing time (he and Santiago have evenly split SS duties) and my guess is the Tigers are keeping Everett around to hedge their bets in case Carlos Guillen can’t stick at second and Scott Sizemore can’t fully find his hitting stroke. Throw in Danny Worth and Everett’s leash may be shortening as well.

Margin for Error

The Tigers have made a payroll commitment to “go for it” this year and they have some terrific players to build around. But there are also enough question marks that the team has very little margin for error relative to the Minnesota Twins.

It isn’t time for rash decisions, but the team has to move swiftly if they have chances for quick upgrades. For now that means dipping into their minor league talent pool and they’ve done a nice job of extending the 25 man roster for several weeks now.

Dontrelle Willis shines, Magglio Ordoñez makes history, the Tigers take their first series of the year against the Minnesota Twins. Any way you slice it this game was a heck of a lot of fun.

Willis walked the second batter he faced, and the last one. In between he was mixing pitches and speeds and mixing up the Twins to the tune of 6 strike outs and 6 innings of shut out baseball. We shouldn’t draw too many conclusions in April, but Willis has been good more than he’s been bad this season. Against the Twins he was very good, not lucky, not pitching on the edge, just plain old good.

And then you have Magglio Ordoñez making history and becoming just the 6th Venezulean to reach 2000 career hits. He joins fellow country men Luis Aparicio, Omar Vizquel, Andres Galarraga, Dave Concepcion, and Bobby Abreu.

You have the Tigers manufacturing a run in the first inning against a pitcher who has had their number. Single-steal-error-sacrifice fly and the Tigers had all the runs they’d need.

Then there is the bullpen with Joel Zumaya dominating again for 2 innings. The signature moment was a 3 pitch strikeout of Joe Mauer. And Jose Valverde picking up his seventh save.

And in the end you have a series win against a divisional foe. Good times.

Way back in the early days of the season, the Tigers swept the Cleveland Indians. It was the last time they won a series. Granted, they did notch 2 splits on the road so it hasn’t all been bad. Today it will be Dontrelle Willis looking to edge out Carl Pavano.

Pavano had this bizarre mastery over the Tigers last year. Overall he had a 5.10 ERA last year. Against the Tigers it was 3.00 and he went 4-1 in his 6 starts. This year he’s pitching quite good against everybody though. He’s 3 for 4 in quality starts and has only walked one batter this season while fanning 17.

This isn’t an ideal match-up for the Tigers hitters, and it isn’t ideal for Willis either. Even with improved control, walks have still been an issue this year – just not a debilitating one. And the Twins are the only AL team to earn more free passes than Detroit.

Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers – April 29, 2010

The Tigers have taken two turns through the rotation. The first was largely encouraging. A Max Scherzer 1 run effort and reasons for hope from Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman highlighted the pass with rough but acceptable outings from Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello. This second turn though…oh man.

Using the Baseball Musings Day by Day Database it is easy to see how the starters have fared over the last 5 games and it isn’t pretty. The 12 walks issued over the 5 starts is borderline acceptable. But outside of that it is a matter of picking which number is most troublesome. Is it the 42 hits or the run-an-inning pace or the fact that strikeouts are few and far between? Or do you go with the result of all the ineffectiveness which is a bunch of short outings?

This isn’t rocket science. The starters have to pitch better. All of them. With only 4 of the hits being homers, there is some hope that the BABIP will drop. But the teams that the Tigers have faced (Indians/Royals/Mariners) are far from offensive juggernauts making this all the more concerning.

The third pass through the rotation begins today with Justin Verlander. The Tigers are the only team to not have a starter record an out after the 6th inning. That needs to change and the sooner the better.

Few players on the Tigers roster, or even in MLB in 2010 will receive the scrutiny that Dontrelle Willis will receive. Willis has been a disaster since putting on a Tigers uniform. He was certainly shaky in his second start, but there is no need to rush to judgment.

Two starts into the season Willis has a good start and a bad start under his belt. But he hasn’t collapsed. He hasn’t had a melt down. He hasn’t done anything appreciably different than his rotation mates at this point.

Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander both had their share of struggles their second time out this season. Willis labored through 5 innings, needing over 100 pitches to make it through and being charged with 4 runs along the way. That bested both Scherzer’s and Verlander’s outing. While there is disappointment with all 3, Wilis of course is under the microscope more than the other two given his recent history.

I don’t favor grading Willis on a curve against his past performances. But there hasn’t been anything particularly alarming at this point from Dontrelle. Maybe I’m settling. Maybe I’m judging him as a 5th starter instead of as a starter. The truth of the matter is that given his recent past and a diagnosis that doesn’t give us a lot of benchmarking data we don’t know what to expect. After two starts so far “the worst” hasn’t happened. Short of “the worst” happening two starts just isn’t enough data one way or the other.

We can look for clues though. We hear talk about the velocity and the 94mph fastball he threw today. But only half of the 40 fastballs he threw were over 90mph and only 6 were over 92. The velocity and movement separation between the fastball and change-up are pretty sparse as well. He’s only induced six swings and misses in his 2 starts. UPDATE: Checking fangraphs.com data, Willis is also among the league leaders in terms of percentage of pitches thrown in the strike zone at 57.1 %.

I’m as skeptical as the next person about Willis. But he’s made two starts and hasn’t lost sight of the strike zone. He’s exceeding my expectations. The Tigers even managed to win both of his starts. He hasn’t cost the team anything yet and no red flags need to be raised.

Jeremy Bonderman and Dontrelle Willis have secured the final two spots in the Tigers rotation, and Nate Robertson secured a spot with the Marlins. The Tigers today traded Robertson and $9.6 million of his $10 million contract for Marlins left handed prospect Jay Voss. For my thoughts on the trade, well, just look back a couple days.

Robertson outpitched his two competitors not only this spring, but last year as well. The stats say that Robertson should be in the rotation. It has to be a tough pill for Robertson to swallow.*

But, it is important not to make too much of spring stats, or even last year’s stats due to the limited sample sizes in play. Scouting reports should play a role as well and the Tigers are encouraged by the stuff that Willis and Bonderman have shown this spring.

On Willis Dombrowski said:

He’s throwing strikes. His ball has had quality movement. He looks more confident on the mound.

And on Bonderman:

He’s come back. He’s continued to progress. His arm strength is average to a tick above. It looks like he’s sinking the ball well. His slider has been good. He continues to work on his change — he’s thrown some good ones. I don’t want to say he’s got exactly the same stuff, because he used to throw 96-97 m.p.h. But it’s solid, major league stuff. He’s aggressive. You can tell he feels confident.

I’d have more faith in the Willis report if we hadn’t heard this before, like before the extension was signed prior to the 2008 season.

It would be one thing if there was salary relief in play today, but the only difference between cutting Robertson and the trade is Jay Voss (no disrespect intended Mr. Voss). They could have just cut any of the three really.

Eddie Bonine, Alfredo Figaro, Phil Coke, and Zach Miner all just became more important with today’s transaction.

*This isn’t really analysis, but Robertson is one of the Tigers I’ve had a chance to talk with. I’ll gloss over the “he’s a good guy” part because it’s cliche (but it’s also true). But Robertson did appreciate being a Tiger. He identified the Tigers as his team. He knows about the history and the places that legends such as Ernie Harwell and Al Kaline hold in our hearts. In that regard it makes me sad he’s leaving. Yes it is a business and he’s getting paid handsomely, but he’s also a person.

The battle for the back end of the Tigers starting rotation has been the story of the spring for Detroit fans. The Tigers are counting on two of the Jeremy Bonderman – Nate Robertson – Dontrelle Willis trio to bill out the last 40% of the starters innings. Bonderman has pretty much had the 4th spot assured leaving Robertson and Willis battling for the 5th spot. But with Robertson outpitching Willis by most measures, it appears that Robertson is on the block and Willis has that  last spot. A dangerous proposition to say the least.

Willis has been turning heads due to his 1.20 ERA in all of 15 innings this spring. This has been buoyed by the fact he’s only allowed 9 hits this spring. But he is still walking a batter every other inning and not striking out enough hitters (10 in 15 innings). Without seeing the games I really have no idea if Willis is limiting hits due to fooling guys or if it has been some combination of luck and defense. Given  what we know about batting average on balls in play, I’d give more credence to the latter rather than the former.

The results for Willis are encouraging, but only if you’re comparing to his past performance. It’s one thing to be hopeful that Willis is turning a corner based on his spring play, but it is another to think he is ready to be a member of a big league rotation.

Meanwhile Robertson has pitched quite well in his 19.2 innings on the mound. Robertson has adjusted his game and is fanning a batter an inning and has walked only 1 less than Willis.  Just like Willis though we shouldn’t make too much of limited spring stats. Due to injuries and ineffectiveness neither pitcher received considerable game action in 2009, but Robertson did more with his opportunity as a starter. After getting his elbow cleaned out Robertson made 6 starts and posted a 3.86 ERA (with a 1.714 WHIP). He walked too many (4.5/9 innings) and didn’t strike out enough (5.8/9 innings) but it was still ahead of Willis.

In 7 Dontrelle starts (including his good start against the Rangers) he walked 28 in 33.2 innings and only struck out 17 while allowing a 7.49 ERA).

Both players are huge question marks, as is Bonderman. Which makes the rumors that Robertson is being shopped all the more surprising. If Robertson is moved the safety net for Willis becomes Eddie Bonine. One tier down is Armando Galarraga. The Tigers are going to have to pay Robertson regardless (they’d have to eat a big chunk of his contract). I would prefer to see him try and contribute to the Tigers.

The speculation has been that whoever doesn’t make the rotation would be released. Willis, Robertson, and Bonderman have options left, but both could refuse assignment. While I understand that none of the 3 would want to toil in the minors, the chances to have significant playing time with the Tigers are still pretty good.

A trade of Robertson would be hasty at this point. While he probably has the most trade value of the 3, the Tigers likely can’t afford to lose his arm. He has outpitched his main competitors both this spring and in recent history and is in a similar salary situation. The Tigers are carrying the payroll of a competitor and have enough talent given their division to have a shot at the playoffs. Experimenting with a questionable 5th starter for too long could prove too costly. Kind of like in 2009.

The rocky Tigers career of Dontrelle Willis has been well documented. And the story just keeps getting sadder as Willis walked 8 hitters in his rehab start for Toledo. There is this rush in sports conversation today to be the first to declare someone “done” and to call for a release. Much of it is premature and reactionary (Armando Galarraga is the true ace of the staff and Brandon Lyon should be released were popular refrains in April). But we’re on 2 years of frustration with Willis. It’s time.

The fact that the Tigers are even putting Willis on a rehab assignment is surprising. He may have another start left, or at least he was planned to before his latest outing. But to what end? Willis is in no position to join the team at this point and contribute in a very key month of the season. His activation from the DL would only serve to inhibit playoff roster flexibility.

The Tigers have been patient and Willis has done his part by the sounds of things and has been a professional through his ordeal. We don’t know what has happened behind closed doors and there is very little talk that filters through to the media. Both sides get credit for that as well. But it’s time.

There was little harm in holding on to Willis this year, they were paying him anyways and eating 2 years of salary is a harder pill to swallow. It was only a matter of holding a 40 man roster spot, and it was worth pursuing. But now the 40 man roster is full and there are a number of players who will need protecting this offseason and that spot will be better spent on a prospect.

I’d guess it doesn’t happen until the offseason, there isn’t a pressing need to rock any boats right now. But I’d be shocked if he is on the 40 man roster by the time the Winter Meetings arrive in Indianapolis. We’ll always have May 19th.

Toledo 7 Columbus 6
Scott Sizemore doubled twice and homered. Dane Sardhina homered and singled. Brent Dlugach had 2 hits. Dontrelle Willis started and allowed 1 run on 1 hit and a walk with a K before leaving in the second inning with a knee injury. Brooks Brown came in and threw 4.2 innings allowing 3 runs on 6 hits, a walk, and a strike out.

Erie 6 Trenton 7 (10 innings)
Max St. Pierre doubled and homered. Danny Worth and Mike Bertram each had 2 hits. Ramon Garcia allowed 10 hits and 6 runs in 3 innings with no walks or strikeouts. Robbie Weinhardt and Brendan Wise each pitched 3 scoreless innings of relief.

Erie 1 Trenton 2
Mike Bertram had a double. Jon Kibler walked 5 and allowed 5 hits leading to 2 runs in 5.1 innings.

Clearwater 7 Lakeland 10
Devin Thomas went 2 for 3 with a homer and a walk. Christopher White homered and doubled. Mark Sorensen continues to struggle at Lakeland, this time he was tagged for 5 runs on 12 hits in 4.1 innings.

West Michigan DNP

Williamsport 0 Oneonta 2
Jamie Johnson doubled and walked. Luis Angel Sanz got the complete game shutout with 9 K’s, 3 walks, and 4 hits.

GCL Tigers 6 GCL Phillies 3
Alexander Nunez tripled and homered. Jordan Cruz had 2 hits. Rayni Guichardo allowed 3 runs on 4 hits, 2 walks, and 2 K’s in 6 innings.

Minor Links

• Baseball America published their A ball best tools list. Casey Crosby rates as the best pitching prospect in the Midwest League by sporting the best fastball. Audy Ciriaco and Gustavo Nunez rated as the best infield arms in their respective leagues.
• Take 75 North speculates on Daniel Fields (who threw out the first pitch Wednesday night at Comerica Park) starting assignment next year.

Columbus 4 Toledo 8
Mike Hessman 2 for 4 2B, HR. Jeff Fraizer 2 for 4, HR. Ruddy Lugo 6 IP, 3 R, 6 H, 3 BB, 3 K. Jeremy Bonderman 1 IP, 1 H, 1 K.

Erie DNP

Clearwater 5 Lakeland 1
Audy Ciriaco 2 for 4, SB. Justin Henry 2 for 4, 2 SB. Ryan Ketchner 6.1 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR.

South Bend 3 West Michigan 8
Alden Carrithers 2 for 4, 3B. Ben Guez, 2 for 4, 2 2B. Avisail Garcia, 2 for 3, 2B. Adam Wilk 6.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 W, 2 K.

Oneonta DNP

GCL Tigers 2 GCL Pirates 3
Francisco Martinez 3 for 5, 2B, SB. Chao Ting Tang 2 for 5. Zach Samuels 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 4 K.

Roster/Rehab Notes

Chris Lambert was DFA’d to make room for Jacob Turner’s contract. Lambert was at least solid for AAA despite his struggles. I’m a little surprised it wasn’t Mike Hollimon who has battled injuries and is too old to really be considered a prospect at this point.

In the same article it is noted that Dontrelle Willis was scratched from a rehab start due to a sore hip and his rehab is now on hold.

The Tigers have made a decision, at least for the time being, to stick with Dontrelle Willis in the starting rotation. Jeremy Bonderman will head to the bullpen…for now. Keeping Willis in the rotation is probably the right decision if Bonderman is the other option. Of course I kind of agree with Lee that perhaps that pool should include Zach Miner. That doesn’t seem like an option the team is exploring at the moment though, so what can we take from this decision?

First of all, Bonderman isn’t ready. I don’t think there is a lot of questioning of this point. I don’t see him being able to rebuild his arm strength pitching in sporadic low leverage situations in the pen. My guess is he gets optioned to Toledo (assuming he clears waivers and agrees to it) to work in the rotation and hopefully get his velocity back. He’s in the pen now because they need another arm in the pen, and likely want to bring Ryan Perry back. But Perry has to stay on optional assignment for a minimum of 10 days.

As for Willis, it appears he is pitching just well enough (not necessarily good) to hang in the rotation. This will be another test. I guess the goodish news is that we get to see Dontrelle hit for the first time.

A bunch of stuff that I should highlight or comment on that I just haven’t gotten around to doing so I’ll let others do it for me:

• Ian drops the hammer on Dontrelle after yesterday’s debacle. I give Ian credit for coming strong (damn, I sound like Jim Rome). I’ve yet to comment because while I’ve watched the replay, I still can’t even digest what happened. So take it away Ian: D-Train Disaster: Red Sox 6, Tigers 3 – Bless You Boys
  

  Congratulations, Dontrelle. You pitched well enough in the first four years of your career to get a $29 million contract. You benefited from a career-worst decision by a general manager and owner who felt they needed to push their team through an open championship window before it closed. You got to cash in on a 22-win season that took place four years ago. Kudos to you, sir. But this has been a massive failure. Seriously, man – you and the Tigers should be done professionally.

• Here is a look at Edwin Jackson’s Success Through Pitchf/x. It’s one of those posts that I’ve been wanting to do. It looks like the slider has more down action this year than last. (h/t Bless You Boys)
• The folks at It’s Just Sports just relaunched their blog, and I was honored to be part of the Better Know a Blogger feature this week.
• The Tigers recent struggles have people wanting change. Kurt takes a rational look some of the options the Tigers may have
• And from the Good News department, Rick Porcello was AL Rookie of the Month and Justin Verlander took him the AL Pitcher of the month honors

The Tigers have some roster decisions looming with the imminent return of Jeremy Bonderman and Marcus Thames. In both cases there aren’t clear cut performance based decisions on who gets sent down so things like options come into play. There has been some confusion about the option status and service time of various players so let’s clear that up.

MLB roster rules are never simple and chuck full of exceptions. While salary data and service time data is generally findable, options are harder to find and often requires combing through transaction lists. Fortunately for Tigers fans Eddie Bajek compiled this information during the offseason.

When a player is on the 40 man roster and on neither the disabled list or the 25 man roster, they are on OPTIONAL assignment to another club. There is a limit to the number of years that a player can be on optional assignment and these are commonly refered to OPTIONS or OPTION YEARS. If said player is using an option in a given year, they can be recalled an optioned to the minors repeatedly without burning additional options. For example, Wilkin Ramirez was added to the 40 man roster prior to the season. During spring training he was optioned to Toledo so he used an option. When the Tigers recalled him while Magglio Ordonez was on bereavement leave and subsequently optioned back to Toledo, he didn’t use an additional option. It is still just one option.

Players typically have 3 options. This is to keep a team from burying a player in the minors forever which helps the player and helps distribute talent around the league. There are some exceptions where a player can have a 4th option year, based on when they were added to the 40 man roster but this is fairly rare.

Those are options in their simplest terms, now let’s take a look how it applies to a couple of Tigers:

Zach Miner: Zach Miner was added to the 40 man roster when he was called up by the Tigers during the 2006 season. He then spent the rest of the year on the active roster meaning that no option was used. In 2007 he split time in the minors and the majors meaning he used his 1st option year. Last year Miner was optioned to Toledo on July 2nd. So you’d think he would use an option, but to actually use the option you need to be on optional assignment for at least 20 days. Miner was backing pitching for the Tigers by July 21st and remained up the rest of the year. So he has 2 options remaining.

Armando Galarraga: This one had me fooled. The Rangers purchased his contract ahead of the 2006 season and he spent the bulk of that season and 2007 in the minors meaning he had used 2 options when the Tigers acquired him. He was assigned to Toledo to start the 2008 season but he was recalled prior to the 20 day rule meaning he has one option remaining.

Dontrelle Willis & Nate Robertson: Both players came up and when they were added to the 40 man roster earlier in their careers they pretty much stuck. Nate used one option early in his career but Dontrelle had his full slate going into 2008. Well last year  Willis used an option but it was completely at the club’s discretion. It a player has more than 5 years since their debut the player has the right to refuse the assignment. So Willis has 2 options, Nate has 3, but both could theoretically refuse optional assignment.

Ryan Raburn: Raburn started the year in the minors initiating his last option year. There is another caveat (and one that applies to Willis and Robertson as well) is that if it is more than 3 years after the debut a player must pass through revocable waivers before being optioned down. This shouldn’t be an issue though.

Clete Thomas & Jeff Larish: This is their second option year meaning that he’ll have one left after this year.

The above are the main candidates who could be bumped with the return of Thames and Bonderman and perhaps you learned something along the way. Big thanks to Eddie who captured all the information and presented it so succinctly. To see the option status for the rest of the Tigers be sure to check out his site.

Edwin Jackson

There has been some misinformation being floated around that Edwin Jackson is set to become a free agent. Seeing as we are talking about roster business I figured this should be addressed as well. To become a big league free agent you need 6 years of service time. Jackson came into this year with 3 years and 70 days (often seen as 3.070 years). He will be arbitration eligible in both 2010 and 2011 and won’t become a free agent until 2012.

Sometimes the game story is a lot more story than game. Tonight is one of those nights as Dontrelle Willis found something. He found his command. He found his confidence. He found himself with his very first Tigers win.

Willis looked like a different pitcher tonight. He had control in his Twins start, but against the Rangers he had command. He worked both sides of the plate to both lefties and righties. He was moving in and out, up and down and working the edges of the zone. He had a very good hitting team off balance. While he did get some help from his defense on some hard hit balls, he had more than his share of dribblers and routine grounders as well.

Willis allowed 2 baserunners in the first inning, and when he recorded the 3rd out of the debut inning that would be the last time for the night he would pitch from the stretch. He recorded the next 17 outs in order and was lifted when we halked the final hitter he faced.

The thing about comeback stories is that you have to have had something to come back from. Dontrelle was battling a lot of stuff, be it mental or physical or some combination of both, since signing his 3 year deal with the Tigers. I know there is doubt about the anxiety disorder DL stint, but whatever happened he wasn’t right before. Tonight he looked right.

I’m not ashamed to admit I didn’t have a good feeling about today’s game. The Tigers were without Magglio Ordonez. The Rangers were a hot to who could thump, and Willis was a question mark to say the very least. But this was one of the crispest games the team has played this year. The defense was on the mark. The offense kept the pressure on in the early going. The bullpen shut things down. A great night all around and the Tigers are at 5 games over .500, a new high water mark for the season.

• The Tigers had 9 baserunners in the first 3 innings but only scored 3 runs.
• Fernando Rodney has retired 13 straight batters. I’m just sayin…
• Joel Zumaya topped the century mark
• Larish was the only Tigers without a hit, but he did have a sac fly and a walk

Pretty much everyone has beat me to this, but I still feel I should offer up something about Dontrelle Willis’s first start of the year. There are a couple ways to approach the assessment.

You can look at a final line that included 10 hits and 2 walks in just under 5 innings and come away unimpressed or even discouraged. Especially when you look at the fact he only notched one swing and a miss.

Or you can look at the start in the context of last year when the strike zone proved to be a foreign land to Willis. That he only walked 2 in his time on the mound could be a step forward. And even when he missed the zone, he missed by reasonable amounts, like you’d see in a regular start.

Figure 1 Pitch Location

I’m encouraged in that I don’t see him pitching scared. He came inside to both lefties and righties. I don’t know if that is by design or a lack of control in the strike zone, but the absence of unintentional pitch-outs is encouraging.

With so much of Dontrelle’s problems last year related to the inability to throw strikes (be it mental or physical) he had no chance of success. Efforts like Wednesday night where he’s in and around the strike zone, and throwing the ball in stead of aiming it. His fastball averaged a shade over 90 and he threw a number in the 91-93 range.

There was considerable mechanical work done on Willis last year with simplifying his delivery and trying to find something more consistent. It didn’t enhance things at all. The high leg kick is back and with it some inconsistency in release point. I don’t know how much of an issue that plays, but I think this graph of release point is interesting so here it is.

If we can say that the control problems are under control, at least the focus then turns to effectiveness. That is where Willis fell down in his debut start. He didn’t miss bats, even when he was getting ahead of hitters (59% first pitch strikes). Willis wasn’t particularly effective in 2007 and that was when he was right as he pitched a 1.6 WHIP that year. That his first start of 2009 looked to be an extension of that season wasn’t encouraging.

I don’t know if I’d call Dontrelle’s outing good, but I would call it progress. He can now throw the ball over the plate. He knows it. The coaching staff knows it. The fans know it. Now it is a matter of whether or not he can be an effective big league pitcher.

Some other takes:

• Bless You Boys: The Unbearable Lightness of Low Expectations
• Mack Avenue Tigers: Willis earns second look