The Wall Street Journal takes note of all of the anxiety cases this year:
Three professional baseball players have landed on the disabled list this season for a problem they can't ice, bandage or have surgically repaired: anxiety . . . Baseball's anxious include Detroit pitcher Dontrelle Willis, St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Khalil Greene and Cincinnati first baseman Joey Votto, who all spent weeks on the disabled list spring for mental-health issues. Mr. Willis, who returned to the lineup in May, was placed on disabled status again in mid-June for anxiety.
I'm not sure what to make of all of the anxiety problems this year, but part of me thinks that not all of them are technically social anxiety disorders. Rather, I suspect that they're all lumped together as "anxiety disorders" because Zack Greinke sort of made the term "anxiety disorder" acceptable in baseball circles by going through and subsequently overcoming what he went though, whereas depression or any number of other specific neurosis remain new and scary in this historically-conservative world. Don't get me wrong; by all accounts, Votto and Khalil Greene's situations were serious, and I'm not dismissing them. I'm just saying that, based on what they've revealed about their problems, things like depression or any number of other neurosis seem plausible too. Ultimately my point here isn't to diagnose anything (I'm not qualified to do that). It's just to suggest that maybe what's happening is a greater willingness among baseball players to be up front about psychological problems in general as opposed to their being some sudden and inexplicable outbreak of social anxiety disorder. If so, that's a very good thing.
That said, I and others have voiced some skepticism about Willis, mostly because (a) even after his alleged diagnosis he said he felt great and that his only problem was that he couldn't pitch; and (b) the "anxiety" only seemed to come up when the Tigers needed to move Willis off the active roster to bring in a productive player. I think there have been a lot of disabled list shenanigans this year—amazingly, Boston's Dice-K got injured at just the perfect time to solve the Red Sox' roster logjam — and it wouldn't surprise me if Willis' were another example of it.
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Votto told the people of Cincinnati about his problems and it was due to his Fathers death. He was having trouble with it and seems to be better now. He came out and was very honest about what was wrong which I found refreshing...
Article....
I agree 100%, sorrelen. I have nothing but praise for Votto -- and Dusty Baker, I might add -- for the way they handled all of this. Given baseball's awful history of dealing with mental illness or, really, anything "different" of any kind, it makes me very happy to see how all of this has gone down.
Yes they did handle it very well, I was impressed...
Dice-K deserved to be placed on the disabled due to shoulder problems not because there was a logjam at the pitching position.
It appears to me that you are going way too far on the limb. Speaking about psychological orders that you are not trained in and saying the red Sox are playing games with the DL. Be careful.
The Willis diagnosis is very clearly a suspect one; I just hope it doesn't do great harm to the cause of open-mindedness & acceptance regarding mental health problems.
In other news, the Cardinals have finally proven that we can put to bed the vicious rumors that a few weeks of minor league baseball can cure an achin' mind ...
Hey Craig, I have a sox disorder, I'm an addict, does that mean I should go on the DL? A little dessignated sox time would probably be healthy for me and allow me to get it up and going again. There doesn't seem to be a log-jam in my sox world either. Please write about relevant baseball please!
Actually, I think this is a very interesting topic. MLB has to walk the fine line between being accepting of players' mental health issues and not being jerked around by teams creating reasons to send players on the DL.
I think Craig has a valid point with Dontrelle. Willis himself claims that he was fine, and that the problem was just that he's can't get into a groove/ pitch well.
Now, the MLB shouldn't go accusing players of "pretending" to have a mental health issue, but it also seems that there has been som DL abuse this season. I also noticed that it seems that teams seem to be putting players on the DL who aren't performing well in order to get them some free minor league rehab (if they have no options). Either MLB should enforce their roster rules, or maybe there should be some changes based on the the number of players lately who have been in need of a mental break.
For example, Delmon Young's mother passed away earlier this year. He was away for the maximum number of days for his family emergency leave and the Twins were stuck: Young is out of options and their roster was banged up. Young returned and promptly struck out in 50% of his at-bats and looked totally out of it. The Twins didn't make up a reason to DL him, but I feel that there should have been some way to give him a mental break from the game to deal with his loss. I supposed that Votto's situation was similar and that they could have handled it the same way.
The sox fans defending the Dice-K move are the ones really going out on a limb here. I love the Sox, but even I can admit that that move was very suspicious at best.
Dice-K was DL'd with "shoulder soreness" which is not medically provable condition even when it is very real. The patient's word in describing the malady is the basis for that diagnosis and very little else. Even many muscle pulls are undetectable with machines and diagnosed only on the description of symptoms and observable signs of pain (ie wincing, lack of range of movement) As such, you cannot prove in any definite way if the player is injured or not.
If MLB doesn't take the patient and the doctors' word on these injuries it would have a totally unreasonable policy. On the other hand, all pitchers get sore arms from their normal workload. There is only the view of the player, trainers, coaches and medical staff to distinguish between "normal soreness" and "injured soreness." Dice-K's velocity wasn't radically different from his norm, nor was he unable to do anything he normal does as a pitcher.
The fact that Smoltz was going to get starts and Wake, Beckett, and Lester were not going to be move from the rotation meant that either Penny or Dice-K would need to move the bullpen. Dice-K would have been the only choice really since Penny needs to start to ensure he gets max value as a trading block. Presented with banshment to the 'pen (where he would be useless and therefore used only in mop up duty) or a trip to the DL (where he can try to regain effectiveness) it seems that the DL offered the best option for all involved and so injured or not, that is where he was bound to land.
Whether Matasuzaka is really injured, only he really knows. It should be clear, however, that the vauge nature of injuries, even the purely physical, offers teams a way to skirt the rostering rules. The Willis example is really interesting one because he was so unwilling to tow the party line on his "injury." Is there a process of review for such roster moves and if so, what was presented to the league to justify the placement of Willis on the DL in spite of his statements? I would like to know.
Let's not act like "playing games with the DL" just popped up overnight. Ask any ambulance chaser, soft tissue injuries are hard to prove / disprove.
Son, come on into my office. We like you a lot, but we're up against a numbers problem here. The GM signed (Veterans X and Y) so we can't put you on the major league roster, but we don't want to put you through waivers because (Teams A and B) will claim you. So here's what we want you to do tomorrow: while you're jogging in from shagging flies tomorrow afternoon, I want you to grab your hammy.
Anxiety Disorder is being used as a catchall for any mental health problem now, and Greinke is most likely the reason why. In the old days, there was one fixer for any mental health problem, but it caused worse problems down the road. Players called it whiskey.
ouch, my hammy just pulled as I sat here and wrote this!