Dontrelle Willis makes his return to the bigs tonight to face the Twins. Given how shaky D-Train has been for so long, it's a development that probably has our friend and Twins' fan Aaron Gleeman rather pleased. Given what Willis said in an interview with MLB.com this morning, however, the Tigers' opponents and whatever carrier insures Tigers' contracts can't be too pleased:
I was just playing bad," Willis said. "And that happens . . .Even when I went on the DL, I felt fine. You can ask anybody in here. I'm not a depressed guy. Maybe I'm hard on myself, but I wouldn't have gotten here if I wasn't. But there's a fine line to knowing what you can control and what you can't control. As far as how I feel, I don't have a condition. My condition is me going out there and playing baseball and having fun. If God doesn't want me to do it, then I'll find something else to do."
Except that the stated reason that Willis was on the disabled list to begin with was a condition (i.e. anxiety disorder). A condition that I can only assume allowed the Tigers to submit an insurance claim for the part of the $10 million the Tigers owed him while he was on the DL. A condition that allowed the Tigers to make a roster move that kept them from having to make tough decisions about what to do with a pitcher that couldn't seem to get anyone out.
Query: is there any way to test a team's assertion that a player has a given injury or disorder before putting a guy on the disabled list? If so, does anyone at Major League Baseball headquarters every bother to do so? Because the description, timing and duration of Willis' "anxiety disorder" doesn't pass the smell test. Such a thing cost Zack Greinke nearly a whole season in which he couldn't even be near the game for months. Maybe Willis' disorder wasn't so severe, but when a guy says "I felt fine" and "I was just playing bad" in reference to the time he was DL'd, someone ought to start asking some questions.
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I'm not so irked about the DLing part so much as the insurance claim submission. Practically every team has a bad contract on their roster, and it looks like Detroit tried taking a shortcut while giving Willis an inaccurate "diagnosis". This just seems shady.
The insurance submission is an assumption on the part of Craig - being a smart guy, he even admits it up-front.
Let's say the contract is insured for this (most are not, I believe, but big ones sometimes are). Not only would the team have to be somewhat dumb to submit a claim without documentation, the insurance company would have to be extremely incompetent in accepting an undocumented claim.
Simply put, I doubt there was an insurance submission and would file it in the "not an issue" column until actual evidence came to light. If there was a submission, it opens up new possibilities: crooked doctor? Willis in denial?
Could be a bigger story than even Craig thinks, but signs point to "no."
listen up, writer. anxiety is a psychiatric condition. anxiety happens. psychiatric labels are used merely to describe and differentiate a persons experience and level of functioning. it goes wthout saying that many ballplayers at the major league level have healthy or excessive ego, and sometimes very modest insight into how their internal processes translate into behavior and functioning.
would it be surprising for this player to have a clincially diagnositc anxiety disorder?no, not all.
would it be surprising for the player with a big ego to acknowledge having an anxiety disorder to the pubic (much less to himself?? not at all.
the last time I checked, most people don't like to acknowledge their vulnerabilities. certianly a major league ballplayer isn't likely to be at the top of the list of self disclosure.
denial is a phenomenon that happens merely in politics.
check the stats at NIH, at any given time 1 in 4 americans is struggling with a mental illness. depression and anxiety often go hand in hand.
anxiety and depression are the common colds of the world we now live in - even for major league ballplayers.
you could look it up.
Dave in Seattle
sorry, meant to say this it would be very surprising for the player to acknowledge having an anxiety disorder. nobody wants to reveal a vulnerability because it is then interpreted as a weakness.
keep your insurance claim conspiracy theory in check until you check out the facts about what anxiety and depression are and how they affect people - and especially how they affect people who are expected to perform at the highest levels.
Acknowledged about the insurance claim. That's why I labled it an assumption. I'm fully willing to accept that it was a wrong one, and if anyone has any evidence one way or the other, I'll gladly run it.
As for anxiety: Dave, the whole point of this post wasn't to take anxiety and depression lightly. Indeed, quite the opposite. I agree it is serious. If anything, I'm concerned that the seemingly out-of-the-blue diagnosis combined with the seemingly quick recovery, combined with the patient's denial of any problem and admission that he was simply "pitching bad" works to undercut the legitimacy of future diagnosis of these disorders. Maybe Willis does have a problem. He's acting like he doesn't, though. If such cavalier denial is a hallmark of the disorder, however, perhaps his mental health professional is doing him a disservice by clearing him to play? Alternatively, perhaps he never had the disorder to begin with. I raise it as a question and admit that I don't have a definitive answer. I think it's worth investigating, though.
What is being glossed over here is that the alleged disorder was diagnosed from a blood test, I believe? Putting all things aside, this doesn't pass the smell test. It didn't when they placed him on the DL and doesn't know with his admission.
What is being glossed over here is that the alleged disorder was diagnosed from a blood test, I believe? Putting all things aside, this doesn't pass the smell test. It didn't when they placed him on the DL and doesn't now with his admission.
if "performance anxiety" warrants a culture that is obsessed with advertising for products like Cialis and "male enhancement" pills, why would anyone anywhere think that peformance anxiety in professional sports is not a likely possiblity? baseball may be a game but the players often bring their own demons along with the ride.
anxiety certainly cannot be diagnosed from a blood test.
if the Tigers manipulated the insurance informaton in order to try and collect money for a player that was physically unable to perform, shame on them (and Bank of America, and AIG, and all the rest)...
yes, denial of a problem is the plague we're all living with. maybe this player is also having a problem with or as a result of steroids.....the speculation could be endless.
in the final analysis, an MD signed off on the diagnosis and the insurance claim forms. Keep in mind that an anxiety disorder is much easier on the ear and the ego than some other psychiatric label.
in any event, his ability to do his job well on the field - or not - will be the tale of the tape.
"in the final analysis, an MD signed off on the diagnosis and the insurance claim forms."
An MD prescribed Elvis Presley about 2,588 contraindicated drugs, too. The fact that that BS midichlorians blood-test explanation was given as the fundament of the diagnosis of anxiety suggests to me that it's crap.
Also suggesting it's crap: 1) I have had anxiety disorder, and it doesn't resolve itself according to the length of a DL stint; 2) Willis's problem was not mental, it was mechanical. His arm angle changed. I don't know why it took major-league pitching coaches this long to figure it out, but he wasn't depressed; he was tipping his pitches.
What part of this is about the sport baseball ????? A sports writer should write about sports, that is why they call them sports writers .......... sports writer are not Doctors ..........