What you talkin' bout Willis?

Today the Tigers placed Dontrelle Willis on the 15-day DL with an "anxiety disorder" for the second time, I believe, since he was traded there.

Remember when Dontrelle broke into the league with the Marlins in 2003?

He won Rookie of the Year, went 14-6 with a 3.30 ERA and he was a key part in the Marlins winning the World Series. His herky-jerky but effective delivery had ESPN and Fox flashing clips of Willis interlaced with clips of Fernando Valenzuela. Everyone thought the "D-Train" was going to be the cornerstone of the Marlins organization for years to come.

In 2005 he went 22-10 with a 2.63 ERA and finished behind Chris Carpenter in NL Cy Young voting in a pretty close race. The sky was the limit, and future Cy Youngs seemed inevitable.

And then it all fell apart. In '06 and '07 he went 22-27 with an ERA of 4.49 over those two years.

So this begs the question: What the heck happened to this guy? I could understand if he had his best year when he was 30 and started getting roughed up when he got on the wrong side of 35, but Willis's best years were when he was 21-23. He had (and still has) his whole career in front of him to get better and rack up wins.

Theory 1: He indeed has an anxiety disorder.
From what I have read, the office of Major League Baseball doesn't allow teams to use psychological reasons to place players on the Disabled List unless the claims have medical backing. Also, it does make sense that if it was between a physical breakdown or a psychological one, you would more expect the latter than the former from a 27-year old. He did have the knee injury in 2008, but he should be fully recovered from that. The Tigers seem convinced that there is something definitely wrong mentally.

Theory 2: He has no problem. He's just not good anymore.
Dontrelle Willis, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Brian Fuentes have one thing in common - unorthodox deliveries. Willis's lanky arms and elbows flew around everywhere distracting hitters and making it hard for them to pick up the ball on its way to the plate. Kim's submarine style threw off hitters who were used to seeing more tradtional pitchers the whole game until then. Fuentes has a delayed delivery and has a low arm slot and really comes across his body more than typical pitchers, throwing hitters off just enough to be effective.

All of them had great years at some point in their careers. Kim crashed, Willis is crashing, and Fuentes is showing signs of crashing.

If there is one thing that seems to be true of Major League pitchers, it's that if you have a non-traditional delivery, there will come a time when hitters will figure you out, and when they do, you better be able to step your game up another level, or else you'll be done. Either that or become or stay a reliever to limit pitch samples for hitters.

I'm inclined to believe theory 2. Dontrelle Willis is a really likeable guy, and I really wish he can come back to his old success, but I think it might take a makeover of almost Ankiel-ian proportions for him to be successful again. I'm talking about tearing it all down and building it back up into a more stable delivery.

If he doesn't show signs of improvement soon, I think sadly his days in Detroit are numbered.