NEW YORK — The physical pain finally matched the mental anguish Luke Weaver was already experiencing.
Last July, San Francisco Giants outfielder Michael Conforto hit a line drive squarely off Weaver’s non-pitching elbow, causing him to lose all feeling in his arm temporarily. Even before that moment, Weaver felt his career was slipping away. He was a former first-round pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2014 draft, but he hadn’t panned out in his eight years in MLB. His career ERA was over 5.00; no matter what he did on the mound, nothing worked.
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Weaver’s arm ended up being OK but a month later, the Cincinnati Reds designated him for assignment.
“I haven’t really ever talked about this besides with close family,” Weaver said. “There was that moment where the Cincinnati DFA happened. I just felt like I was going out there and pitching and doing things I needed to do and the results were never really falling for me. It just felt like there were a lot of adjustments, a lot of mental strength that I was trying to push through and that just felt like a really low point.
“In the moment, that was a point where I was actually asking those questions in my mind of like, ‘Is this it?’ And I just remember taking a good night’s sleep and waking up and just feeling resurged and just being like, ‘That’s not who I am. That’s not the way I think.’ I think I had a moment of vulnerability, a moment of reflection and just letting emotions out.”
A few days after being released by the Reds, the Seattle Mariners signed Weaver. He pitched just five games for them before they DFA’d him, too. After getting DFA’d twice in a month, Weaver drew interest from the New York Yankees. It was mid-September and the Yankees were playing for nothing. They cycled in numerous pitchers and prospects to see who could stick around for 2024. Weaver started three games for the Yankees and pitched just 13 1/3 innings but finished with a 3.38 ERA and 16 strikeouts.
“The way the season ended and the positivity that came with it was just a very out-of-body experience for me,” Weaver said. “I felt that this was very much a higher power than just playing a game. There’s a purpose. There’s a circle of life that goes through this.”
The Yankees eliminated Weaver’s slider, reduced his curveball usage and increased his cutter usage in his three starts. What they saw in those three outings was enough for them to re-sign Weaver for $2 million in the offseason, plus a team option for $2.5 million in 2025. The contract looks like a steal so far. Weaver has thrown the second-most innings for all MLB relievers and ranks in the top quartile for all pitchers in whiff, strikeout, chase and walk rates.
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Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said the organization was initially interested in Weaver last season because of his pedigree as a former top prospect involved in the Cardinals-Arizona Diamondbacks trade of Paul Goldschmidt. They also saw some traits in his delivery and in the profiles of some of his pitches that they thought they could alter. The Yankees helped take Weaver’s fastball last season from an 88 Stuff+, a metric that grades the physical characteristics of a pitch, to a 133 Stuff+ this season. His changeup rose from an 83 Stuff+ grade to a 109 this year.
In Year 9 of Weaver’s career, the Yankees figured out that he could be a trusted high-leverage reliever for a team with the second-best bullpen ERA in MLB.
“All of our best acquisitions, seemingly, have been when the scouting department, the pro scouting department, our front office and our analytics department kind of sees qualities on all sides, like pro scouting sees a good athlete with a good delivery and a track record of throwing strikes,” Blake said. “The analytics sees some underlying spin traits that maybe we can adapt and move around. The two combined together, and obviously the character from Luke shows up in house. All these things held together. But I do think when it’s really clicking and collaborative, we all kind of have a piece of the pie. I think that’s what’s helped us.”
Before the Yankees claimed Weaver off waivers last season, he said he wasn’t aware of the organization’s reputation as a pitching factory. The first thing Weaver was blown away by was the amount of technology and information the staff had available for all players. At first, he was overwhelmed by the knowledge being passed on to him. But he called the analytics “a game-changer” because he enjoys processing loads of information.
The biggest change the Yankees helped Weaver make was with his fastball grip. In the past, Weaver tended to shift his fingers on the seams of a baseball by accident because of what felt comfortable for his pointer and middle finger. He has a bigger-than-usual gap between the tips of his index and middle finger, and it previously caused him problems gripping the ball. Sometimes when he’d throw his four-seamer, his middle finger would be on the part of the baseball where no seams are located. When that happened, the spin was negatively affected and lost efficiency.
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“The big goal was to trust that it doesn’t feel comfortable for me, but this ball is coming off super efficiently,” Weaver said. “So I either have to play with a better fastball that is uncomfortable or I have to keep throwing the fastball that doesn’t work. So I got really comfortable with it or at least I was still striving for it over the offseason and into the season. And there’s something here Gerrit (Cole) just showed me with what he’s doing, like it’s just basically fitting the ball in my fingers and knowing exactly where different things on the ball are so that way I can check my grip to make sure.”
The other change Weaver made was one he implemented himself. He went from having a high leg-kick delivery to a slide step. He first experimented with the change early in the offseason and he noticed that the simpler delivery helped with the repeatability of his mechanics and led to less soreness.
Weaver’s delivery is similar to that of Los Angeles Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Like Weaver, Yamamoto once had a leg kick before changing it to the slide step he has now. The change helped Yamamoto develop into one of the world’s best pitchers and led to him signing his $325 million deal, the richest contract for any pitcher in MLB this past offseason.
“I could see a visual of a guy who made that change a year ago, and his efficiency is off the chart,” Weaver said of Yamamoto. “So I was like, I can’t replicate what he does. He’s an animal. He’s so efficient. But I can find what works for me. And I can understand how he’s using that and just kind of have a guy we watch just like most of us do with other pitchers. So it was kind of a nice template.”
The delivery and the move to the bullpen also allowed Weaver to add more velocity to his fastball. His average fastball last season was 94 mph. This year, it’s 95 mph and has more ride in the zone. Opponents are hitting just .152 and slugging a woeful .239 against it entering Tuesday.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone called Weaver’s season “pretty electric,” and it’s clear Weaver has earned a spot in his circle of trust. The Yankees didn’t know he would essentially become this year’s version of Michael King, a reliever who can pitch multiple innings, but Weaver has turned into one of MLB’s best bullpen arms.
“I don’t know if you ever necessarily know where these guys are gonna end up,” Blake said. “If you asked me where Clay Holmes was gonna end up three years ago, I don’t know if I necessarily had this in mind. I just try not to put a ceiling on guys. It’s about making them a little bit better and then an opportunity to make this pitch a little bit better and this pitch a little bit better. Then these things kind of all continue to add up. One plus one doesn’t always equal two. Sometimes it gives you three or four in our world. I think we’ve been lucky in that some of these guys have kind of taken it and run with it and then the confidence builds and all of a sudden you get this whole different version of a guy that you know the underlying traits were always there but it just takes time to gel.”
(Photo of Weaver: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
Chris Kirschner is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the New York Yankees. He previously covered the Atlanta Hawks from 2018-2022 for The Athletic. Chris was named Georgia's Sportswriter of the Year in 2021 for his work covering the Hawks. Chris is a native of Bronx, NY. Follow Chris on Twitter @chriskirschner
