May 15th: The Orioles removed Willis from the restricted list and assigned him to Class A, the Orioles' Triple-A affiliate announced (Twitter link).
May 9th: Willis has agreed to drop his grievance, ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick reports. The Orioles will allow him to start in the minor leagues once he builds up arm strength at extended Spring Training.
April 24th: Left-hander Dontrelle Willis will file a grievance against the Orioles following the club's decision to place him on the restricted list, ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick reports. Willis recently left the Orioles' Triple-A team after a disagreement about his role in the organization.
Orioles executive VP of baseball operations Dan Duquette told CBSSports.com yesterday that Willis left Triple-A Norfolk without permission, but the pitcher's agent, Matt Sosnick, says Willis did obtain permission from the Orioles to leave. Willis can't sign with another club while on the restricted list, so Willis and Sosnick are frustrated.
"We're talking about a minor league player that Baltimore has relatively no financial investment in whatsoever," Sosnick told Crasnick. "It's the dumbest thing ever and a waste of everybody's time. Dan [Duquette] has had a thousand chances to ratchet this down a notch, and all he's done is ratchet it up."
Duquette told Jon Heyman yesterday that he hopes Willis will return and pitch effectively out of the bullpen. However, it sounds as though Willis would prefer to move on.
This is a very impressive victory on Duquette’s part! Problem is where exactly is Willis going to fit into the Oriole starting rotation if and when he gets his stuff together? I wish “The Duke” would show this kind of chutzpah in other area such as resolving the sieve that 3rd base has become for us.
If this were a victory for Duquette then Willis would drop his grievance and be a loogy (the role he agreed upon as a condition of his signing)… instead willis and his agent got their way and he is now starting. Not only did Duquette hurt himself but also the organization with his handling of this situation. Any half-competent GM would have just released him and it would have been a non-story from the beginning.
Or he gets buried at AAA and doesn’t get that coveted release that was after in the 1st place.. No big deal to bury a disgruntled retread in the minor leagues.. Anyone knows that.
Worse…hes burying him in class-A. The ultimate “ill show you”. Break your agreement, and i/m not just letting you go, im making sure you’re never heard from again (and i do remember Willis in an interview saying he’d embrace any role to help the team and get back to the bigs).
Shame, he seemed very likable.
So true. He was really popular with the Fish also, him and Cody Ross.
think he must’ve fallen off the mound so hard while at Norfolk that he landed at Aberdeen or something ;-)
Willis now needs to focus on dropping strikes over the plate
LOL. 1st he needs to learn how to make 2 deliveries in a row exactly the same and not fall off of the mound..
You have to think A pitching coach is falling over after watching him pitch and it isn’t from laughter either..
HA at “fall off the mound”. He used to do that with style at FLA
I know! LOL Am a BIG Fish fan also and he also never repeated his delivery, yet STILL threw strikes!!!
Why couldn’t Miller ever get it down for them??
Dan Duquette chasing more players out of town. The bigger your name is the quicker he’ll get rid of you. Hes done the same thing to Clemens and Vaughn.
That is quite comical.. Check Vaugn.. He had 2 more good seasons, then was THROUGH.. Signed for 6/80m+ with the Angels and that was an unheard of deal back then. Clemens also was nearly done until he started something not named and “found the fountain of youth”, so how can you fault him? He went out and STOLE Pedro Martinez, Tek and Derek Lowe? Your post is an utter failure.
Hindsight’s great isnt it. He chased 2 of Boston’s star players(at that time) out of town. Who cares how they did afterwards. They were still doing well until he didnt want to pay them anymore, and he will do the same in Balt.
You just don’t understand do you?.. Baseball is a business. You have to run it like one, not on fan emotions and The Duke went out and replaced both Clemens and Vaughn with better guys in their PRIME years.
Martinez, Tek, Lowe vs Clemens and Vaughn? Laughable. a good GM HAS to be able to read the future, not run a team on the present + future, not based on a few ill informed fan emotions.
Nice try at revisionist history, Viv. Clemens had dropped of to become a .500 pitcher over his last 4 seasons in Boston and had only one season above 190 innings from ’93 to ’96. Not only were his skills appearing to diminish before our eyes, he wasn’t as durable anymore. Plus after posting a career ERA of 2.80 prior to ’92, his final four seasons in Boston the ERA was a full run higher at 3.77. Duquette made an unpopular, but smart move for the future of the team. Toronto was rolling the dice when they paid $17 million for Clemens over 2 seasons.
Besides that, after ’97 Duquette added Pedro Martinez who promptly won 2 of the next 3 Cy Young Awards in ’99 & ’00. Let’s also not forget that Duquette was responsible for bringing in Wakefield, Lowe, Varitek, Ramirez, Damon, and Schilling to build the foundation of the two championships the Sox won after Duquette was bounced by John Henry.
Gotta agree with JohnSilver here. Who cares how they did afterwards? Well, the team that signed them surely did; and it most certainly validated Duke’s decision. Not quite sure how you can argue to the contrary.
nitpicky time: “assigned him to Class A, the Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate”
the triple-a affiliate ANNOUNCED. So he was at Norfolk before all this, and as punishment, they pretty much said our rotation is full….head on down to our high-school affiliate, they have an opening.
Wow, all the way down to Single-A ball? That’s harsh.
That’s another way of saying, ‘take your ball and go home!’
Thats what she said?
You thought that up all by yourself, huh!?
Willis hasn’t done anything since his early days with the Marlins. He’s always had an inflated sense of entitlement. Really, how many chances does this guy get, anyway?