What Could Have Been: Pitching
By Blake VandeBunte • Mar 11th, 2009 • Category: 2009 Season, Dontrelle Willis, Nate RobertsonPicking up where I left off yesterday…
The Reality: Dontrelle Willis. I won’t get into Willis’ performance last season, that’s too easy. We all know what he did and didn’t do. Willis was flat awful in 2008 and hasn’t given us much reason to hope for anything more in 2009. The guy is struggling. He will get paid $10M this season and $12M in 2010. Yikes.
The Dream: James Shields. Shields is one of the great young pitchers for the Tampa Bay Rays. Last season he went 14-8 with an ERA of 3.56. He also had a very good WHIP of 1.15 and threw 215 innings. He just turned 27 years old in December and appears to have many good years ahead of him. He is currently locked into a very reasonable contract with the Rays. He is due $1.5M next season.
The Reality: Nate Robertson. In some ways, Robertson and Willis are the same player as far as the Tigers are concerned. They are both lefties. They have both seen better days. Both of them are struggling way earlier than anyone thought they would in their careers. They are also both owed a ton of money over the next two years ($17M for Nate). Robertson plugged along for the Tigers last year through a tough season before finally losing his spot in the rotation late in the year. He will make $7M in 2009 and $10M in 2010.
The Dream: Ervin Santana. Santana, once known as Johan Santana, just turned 26 years old in December and went 16-7 last year for the Los Angeles Angels. He had a better ERA (3.49) and a better WHIP (1.12) than our friend James Shields. Batters hit only .237 off of Santana last season and struck out 214 batters while walking only 47. Even though he will start this season on the disabled list, this young hurler has a very bright future ahead of him. He sure would like nice in the Old English D. Best of all, he’ll make only $3.8M next season in the first year of his new contract extension.
I excluded Jeremy Bonderman from this list, because I think he’s a fine pitcher who has just had some injury problems recently. When he’s healthy and on his game, he’s one of the better pitchers in the American League. So while his contract looks bad when he’s not playing, he’s worth the money when he’s able to pitch.
Blake VandeBunte is a posting fiend.
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Uh, these posts are not very uplifting, Blake. And now Treanor and Thames are ailing. Come on now!
There are so many others to add to the list here: signing Jose Mesa, Kyle Farnsworth II, giving up on Tim Byrdak, losing Jamie Walker, trading Jair Jurrgens, NOT trading Zach Minor in ‘06, etc.
Sorry Jen, but I think Rings was even more depressing than me.