February 17, 2010

Should Dontrelle be on the DL?

Craig Calcaterra reads this Lynn Henning article and wonders if Dontrelle Willis should be on the disable list. At issue is a lack of drugs for his anxiety disorder.

This last part may be the most troubling, for one of two reasons. It could mean that Dontrelle Willis is refusing to treat what can be a very serious condition, and the Tigers — who we must assume monitor Willis’ health as closely as they monitor all of their players’ health — are condoning it.

Or it could mean something more sinister: that Dontrelle Willis doesn’t really have anxiety disorder, that his problems are basically a function of him losing his control and effectiveness, and that the Tigers have been nonetheless saying that he does have it in order to justify all of the time he’s spent on the disabled list.

I used to think this was possible, that teams manipulate the DL. MLB, however, appears to be very tough on teams disabling players, and the paper work, including medical reports, needs to be in order. More likely, this disorder can’t be handled with drugs. Simply put, there is not a pill for every disorder.

1 thought on “Should Dontrelle be on the DL?

  1. rbj

    See also, Rick Ankiel the pitcher (and Chuck Knoblauch and er, I forget his name, Steve S___ who also lost the ability to throw from second to first).

    Very weird when someont loses the ability to do something he’s done for years and there isn’t an apparent physical problem.

    ReplyReply

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