BM loves D-train; Randy Johnson is totally killing BM's fantasy team

Our Boy BM started off Monday's column with this headline:

Yankees should be zeroing in on Willis

Okay, so I know it was really his editor. But still. He followed it up with this...

The undermanned New York Yankees could use a lot of things right now, but no addition would mean more than pitcher Dontrelle Willis.

More than having Matsui and Sheffield back? I mean, there's a lot you can do if your team knocks in 10 runs a night.

The Yankees reportedly scouted Willis in Sunday's 3-0 Florida loss in Tampa Bay. That's no surprise.

True. I mean, teams scout people all the time. Plus the Ynaks tend to have scouts just hanging out with Billy Connors in Tampa all the time.

The penny-pinching Marlins are expected to trade him before the July 31 trade deadline and the Yankees are certain to make a big pitch. They don't have the most prospects to trade but they have the thing the Marlins like most — money.

Tweet. Flag on the play. According to USA Today, Dontrelle makes a whopping $4.35 million this year. I mean, I know the Marlins owners are a bunch of city-hostage-holding, christmas-stealing, multi-billionaires, but would they really shed one of their two remaining draws to only relieve themselves of 4 million of payroll? (On a side note, the Marlins are doing their damnedest to make collective bargining difficult by not spending their revenue-sharing money on real, actual baseball talent. But I digress.)

Willis would be the left-handed starting ace the fading Randy Johnson was supposed to be.

For those who might be wondering, some of Randy Johnson's stats from last year:
226 IP, 211 Ks, 3.79 ERA, 8.42 K/9, 4.49 K/BB, and .697 OPS against. Really a travesty of an acquisition. Or not so much. Now you can argue that he hasn't been up to snuff this year (and he hasn't), but last year he was pretty on point. One might even say he was all he was "supposed to be." I mean, after that whole "punching a camera man" thing blew over. Johnson aside, maybe BM's right, maybe Dontrelle CAN help the Yanks more than anything else right now!

Forget (Dontrelle's) 1-5 record and 5.12 ERA. He's a first-class talent employed by a horrible team.

Wha-what? FORGET what he's done this year? Okay, okay. I'll ignore the W-L record. We know wins are only a stat that Cy Young voters care about. Oh yeah, I mean teams do too, but they at least understand the context.

But let's look at that ERA. 5.12? That's kinda ugly. What are his other numbers? Well, they look like this: 5.12 K/9, 1.64 K/BB (less than half his rate last year), a .750 OPS vs., and a 1.47 WHIP. Overall pretty ugly.

Now, I know that my boy FC will argue that he is more than likely to move more towards his career stats in most categories as the year goes on bla bla bla. And FireCrochester might very well be right. But if the Yanks desperately need pitching help, don't they need someone who has been throwing blazing rocks of un-hittableness, as opposed to someone with talent who is struggling? It seems to me that they have plenty of talented, struggling pitchers already.

BTW, Johnson's stats this year? 1.39 WHIP, 7.04 K/9, 2.45 K/BB, 5.89 ERA, .889 OPS. Not good. But not any worse than Dontrelle. Definitely time for the Yanks to ship whatever is left of their farm, not to mention some Marlin "love money" down to Miami.

BM also throws in this sweet "bold prediction":

A Willis move to the Yankees could be the most significant in-season pitcher move since the June 13, 1984 Chicago Cubs trade sending outfielders Joe Carter and Mel Hall to Cleveland for pitcher Rick Sutcliffe.

How bold was that?

In 20 starts with the Cubs, Sutcliffe went 16-1 with a 2.69 ERA and won the Cy Young Award. The Cubs won the National League East with a 96-65 record.

Oh yeah. That's nothing big. No sweat. D-train can TOTALLY replicate that. Hyperbole much?

It is unlikely that Willis could duplicate Sutcliffe's success with the Cubs in 1984...

You don't say.

...but he'd immediately become the best starting pitcher on the Yankees.

No. Actually that would be Moose and his 2.57 ERA, 6-1 record, 7.97 K/9 and 0.98 WHIP. But thanks for the insight.