The Yankees announced they have signed right-hander Luke Weaver to a one-year deal with a club option. Robert Murray of FanSided initially reported the deal, noting that Weaver will make $2MM in 2024 with the potential for the deal to max out at $8.25MM. The deal for the Ballengee Group client is pending a physical. Jon Heyman of The New York Post relays that there are performance bonuses in 2024 while the 2025 option comes with a $2.5MM base salary and escalators based on innings pitched in 2024 that could push it to $6MM.
Weaver, 30, had a nomadic season in 2023, one which he finished with the Yankees. They claimed him off waivers from the Mariners in mid-September and he made three starts for the club down the stretch. He tossed 13 1/3 innings over those outings and had a solid earned run average of 3.38.
That’s obviously a small sample of work and the rest of his season wasn’t nearly as impressive. He signed a $2MM deal with the Reds for the year but posted a 6.87 ERA in 97 innings for that club. He was released in August and signed with the Mariners, logging 13 1/3 innings for them with a 6.08 ERA before heading to the Yanks to finish out the year. Between the three clubs, he talled 123 2/3 frames with a 6.40 ERA, 19.4% strikeout rate, 7.1% walk rate and 35.5% ground ball rate.
The righty has shown better form in the past, including a stretch from 2017 to 2019 when he posted a 4.21 ERA in 261 innings between the Cardinals and Diamondbacks, with Weaver joining Andrew Young and Carson Kelly as the return in the Paul Goldschmidt trade. He paired a 23.4% strikeout rate in that time with a 7.6% walk rate, also getting grounders on 43.5% of balls in play. But his ERA jumped to 6.58 in the shortened 2020 season. He recovered somewhat in 2021, getting that down to 4.25, but missed time due to a strained shoulder and elbow inflammation and only made 13 starts.
In 2022, the Diamondbacks moved him to a relief role, which didn’t work out. He finished the year with a 6.56 ERA, split between the Snakes and the Royals, getting flipped at the deadline for Emmanuel Rivera. The Reds took a shot on him and moved him back to a starting role but, as mentioned, that didn’t work out well either.
Overall, he goes into 2024 with a 5.14 ERA which isn’t immediately impressive. He has never really had control problems, however, having never walked more than 8.9% of hitters in any season and currently sporting a 7.4% rate for his career. For reference, the league average in 2023 with 8.6%. Perhaps there’s some bad luck overall in his results, as his .328 batting average on balls in play and 68.4% strand rate are reach on the unfortunate side of average. ERA estimators such as his 4.31 FIP and 4.20 SIERA paint a more flattering picture than his actual ERA. But on the other hand, his strikeouts have ticked down for four straight seasons now.
The Yankees put a sizable dent in their pitching depth with the Juan Soto trade, as Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito and Randy Vásquez were each sent to San Diego. The Yanks are set to have Gerrit Cole ace the ace this year, with Carlos Rodón and Nestor Cortes each looking to bounce back from injury-related struggles in 2023. Clarke Schmidt should be line for a back end job. The club has also been heavily connected to free agent starters like Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery and Marcus Stroman, as well as trade candidates like Dylan Cease.
Even if they do land another starter in the coming weeks, depth will still be important. Almost no club gets through a season using only its top five projected starters, with each team inevitably needing to turn to starter number six and seven and so on. The Yanks have Clayton Beeter, Luis Gil, Yoendrys Gómez, Cody Poteet and Will Warren around as depth options but Weaver will presumably jump into that mix.
Though his results on the season as a whole were poor in 2023, he finished strong in pinstripes and they must have liked what they saw. He’s also a former first-round pick and top prospect, in addition to having some decent major league results in the past. The $2MM salary isn’t far beyond this year’s $740K major league minimum, but the Yankees are slated to be a third-time competitive balance tax payor, with Roster Resource projecting a $291MM CBT figure at the moment. That puts them above the third tax line and near the fourth and final line of $297MM. Their current level of spending has a 95% and it would be 110% for any spending beyond the top line, so the Yanks will effectively be paying double for Weaver and anyone else they sign from now on.
If Weaver doesn’t have a rotation job to start the season, he will likely find himself in a bullpen job, perhaps as a long reliever. He has over five years of major league service time and cannot be optioned to the minors without his consent. If the Yanks want to remove him from the active roster at any point, they will need to work out a trade or designate him for assignment.
Start printing WS tickets!
Dev – Wow, he doesn’t look anything like his brothers Jered and Jeff!
Ideally they get an actual starter and he’s in the bullpen.
Most underrated sports team in the northeast.
You are the Most underrated fan of the umpires on MLBTR!
as a diamondbacks fan let me be the first to say yuckkkkk
How dare you question The Cashman!
Is this a starter?
For an AAA team, yes.
I don’t know, I can’t see it. But if it’s oddly shaped, cylindrical, and has a gear protruding out of the nose, it most likely is. It should also have a (red) wire attached to one bolt on the starter housing which comes from the + battery terminal.
– Oh, wait, I’m getting the impression we may not mean the same thing….
I think Weaver replaces some of what the Yankees lost by trading Brito and Vazquez. They still need to replace what they lost by trading King.
Exactly people forget Brito threw around 90 innings last year Vazquez almost 30 so that’s 120 innings that needs to be replaced. Weaver pitched well in the Bronx so if he can give the Yankees 50 innings or so it’s worth what they paying him.
Exactly right, Joel. Don’t forget about German too. As much of a mess as he was, he still threw decent baseball for a BOR arm.
Early in his career he was really good. But then things went south. Never really understood why, but maybe the Yanks are betting on return to better days.
Dude is a reliever with a 5.14 career ERA. He’s only had an ERA below 4 in two seasons and the last time was about three years ago. He’s also 30. At this point, this is who he is.
I don’t belive that to be true. There have been late bloomer starters. Kevin Brown comes to mind.
As a Reds fan that watched this guy last year. Get ready to watch this guy give up several big flys. I don’t know how Cashman does it year after year. Most overrated executive in American history.
You better watch your mouth or Yankees fans will come and tell you about some world series he won over a decade ago!
Yankee fans have been tired of Cashman for years. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
@hittingnull
Agreed, most are, but I remember one time I made a remark criticizing a move Cashman made and a couple people got on to me about how Cashman made world series teams and how because of him they make the playoffs every year. That’s my bad, I should have put some Yankees fans, I know most of you aren’t like that.
That’s 1.5 decades ago. Get it right.
So they signed Luke Weaver to the same deal they could’ve signed Trevor Bauer to. What are these orgs thinking. You have a Cy Young winner in his prime that could be had for less than 10 million dollars, and instead you sign Luke Weaver. Surprised at the Yankees, I really am. This seems like a Dollar Tree David Stearns move. Pathetic
Weaver isn’t radioactive. Plus Bauer and Gerrit Cole in the same locker room would be a disaster
Although I get your point, They’re thinking they aren’t going to risk paying Bauer with open case(s) on the court docket. They don’t want to deal with the potential public fallout, they don’t want to deal with the loss of a player if he’s found to have violated something and is Re-suspended, and they don’t want to deal with any potential loss in money if additional details come out during his case(s) that would necessitate Bauer being cut (a la Dodgers).
This is not a personal indictment by me on Bauer, as I don’t want to get into a fruitless discussion over his situation. But, they are no doubt the reasons why teams are staying away from him, imho.
Other reasons could be: he didn’t pitch that well in the NPB, which is equivalent to AAA (he didn’t dominate, in other words); and he has had numerous reported issues with the league (Manfred). Executives don’t like being called out publicly, and if you do, you better be prepared to “fight City Hall.”
Looks like there will be more competition for the fifth starter and spells out a big pitcher acquisition.
He did look surprisingly decent once the yanks grabbed him at the end of the year. Some potential here, I don’t hate this pickup.
Ditto.
In those 13 innings?! lol
Would rather have Luke Weaver production at Luke Weaver pricing than have paid something like $40 million for Giolito and get Luke Weaver production.
Or Monte for Cole pricing, and just get normal Monte production. I love this signing as it hopefully means we don’t overpay for a middle rotation arm.
Luke Weaver has talent. It was smart for Reds to try him last year in their rotation (coming out of a rebuild) and it’s smart for Yankees to give him a try @ $2MM for 2024.
I see the usual assortment of petulant children are here to mock what they don’t understand.
It’s a 2 million dollar depth signing. He’ll be an emergency starter or long reliever. Considering he pitched to a 3.38 era in 3 starts last year….it’s a super cheap gamble. Why cry about or mock it?
Because it’s a major league deal. He’s got to go on the 40 man roster. Who’s getting DFA’d to make room for him? More importantly, who else will get DFA’d when they finally address the starting rotation? And Weaver is not optionable, so it significantly impairs roster flexibility to add him. Foolish use of a roster spot which they desperately need to utilize.
I see your reasoning……but if there is one thing this Yankees administration seems to do is find arms off the scrap heap and turn them into productive pieces. EX – Holmes, Hamilton, Ramirez, etc. If Blake is confident he found something in him, it’s cheap depth. If he goes back to sucking, DFA him.
As for the 40 man, there is probably another trade or two in the works. Don’t we still have like 12 catchers?
That spells bad news for guys on the 40 man like Yoendrys Gomez, Carlos Narvaez, Augustin Ramirez, Jorbit Vivas, and maybe Jeter Downs or Bubba Thompson. We are not 40 guys deep on Jan. 11th, that’s for sure!
Again, I still think we have to make some deals and this singing was made with that in mind. I’d rather have a depth arm than Jeter Downs or Bubba Thompson….if it came down to that.
Jeter Downs is the first drop. Bubba Thompson is right behind him. And I would easily cut Krook before any of Gomez, Narvaez, Ramirez or Vivas.
Those guys guys all have 6 years of control, more talent and all three option years (except for Gomez who has 1).
This is addressing their starting rotation. Cash is done outside of a trade.
Completely disagree. You don’t go all in on one year of Soto with a skeleton starting pitching staff. Weaver is cheap depth only. Expect them to still go after Snell or Monty….and/or a trade for Cease, Beiber or Luzardo
All of those options are simply bad options. Monty or Snell are mid rotation starters at best, and the other 3 would result in Dave Dombrowski’ing our minor leagues to try to win.
Sorry, I want to build a team, not blow my load for one ring and have no depth left to do anything in future years. Opt outs next year can make all of these moves leave us with a pretty bad team.
In other words, I do not want to model our team building after the Red Sox.
Also, getting the best of what was left got us Rondon. We should learn from that trash move and not do it over and over again. Just because there are free agents doesn’t mean you need to sign them.
Matthew, I get what you’re trying to say, but the problem is they’ve been trying to walk that line for over a decade. I think most are completely dissatisfied with the “competitive team” moniker, while we watch early postseason exits year-in and year-out.
Now, with that said, this FA class is not a good one. But there was no point in Soto if we weren’t going all-in. Soto is a WS or bust move. Otherwise, why trade for him at all?
Now, I submit that we should’ve never been in this position to begin with. We shouldn’t have needed Soto, nor should we need SPs again this season. It was repeated roster construction failures by Cashman.
Oh I agree with you 100%!! I absolutely HATE the way they’re constructing this team have for years. It’s not a cohesive team….it’s a collection of progressive band aids. How do you have a short porch designed for an advantage but gift that advantage to the other team with no lefty mashers? How do you have a 300m payroll with one reliable starter?? Complete and total ineptitude!! For That money we should have 5 aces to build around! Cashman is a total idiot. What I’m saying is that he painted himself into a corner with the Soto trade. You can push all your chips to the table for one year of Soto and NOT sign a pitcher now…..so another overpay for a band aid is coming up to try and save his job!
100%, the problem has been Cashman’s repeated mistakes. Should have traded for Cole while he was in Pitt instead of saying no to trading some of the prospects we didn’t want to move. We do that and we have Cole and Houston’s future is shifted severely.
We traded Monty for nothing, thinking we had “too much pitching”.
Cashman has had more to do with other teams winning rings for other teams than he has winning rings for us. Even though it worked out, he traded Chapman to win a ring with the Cubs.
That’s 3 rings Cashman assisted with due to his blunders. The only way we should have traded for Soto is if we had a great team and he was a final piece. Instead they go get him and are trying to build a winning team with a trash FA class.
As a fan I’m frustrated. The move I wanted most was Cashman fired. Everything after that would have been a bonus.
Bingo
Ha petulant children. You’re the one that’s going to cry in June when this is so bad they have designate him for assignment, like two teams did last year. Cashman is such a bum. The 8 million is the real knee slapper. Yeah guy is suddenly going from a guy who could not get out of the 1st without giving up BOMBS and getting cut by two teams to an 8 million dollar arm. Cashman must have been the dalai lama in another life. Not a smart baseball guy but somehow gets the best job in America.
Cashman DOES suck! Read my response rant above to get what I’m saying.
The petulant child comment was for the trolls on other teams coming here to make 6th grade comments. There are plenty of those.
Complete waste of a 40 man roster spot with so many holes in that rotation left to fill.
Cole, Rodon, Cortez, Shmidt and Weaver. Beeter for depth. Rotation is complete!
How disgusting, and not in a good way.
That rotation is a recipe for another .500 season
But not a Red Sox year. I don’t want Snell or Monty for what it will take, nor do I want to strip out the minors for Cease. There is no move that will assure the Yankees 100 wins. They would need several, and the players to make that happen aren’t there, and what is there isn’t good enough or available at a reasonable cost.
I’d rather load up on offensive players as there are ones left there and chance the rotation between what I mentioned and high end minor league arms.
Cashman still needs a reliable #2 or #3 or #4 starter. The Yankees currently only have 2 starters with experience and don’t have shoulder/arm questions/problems. On a good day Weaver is a #5 starter. On a bad day, he’s a bullpen mop up guy that can give you six innings while you trail 15-2.
Personally, I would pass and keep my 2 Mil.
Except this move doesn’t limit their ability to pursue further upgrades. With injuries and whatnot you need like 7-8 sp options to get through a season. If he doesn’t work out the yanks can easily afford to carry this kind of money for a long reliever/mop up guy or eat it in a dfa/release move.
The shame of it is, Rick, that Weaver was more valuable than our #2, Rodon last season. I mean, that’s not a justification for this signing as most people were better than Rodon. But, it’s scary to think about unless Rodon rebounds (I hope he does).
Why is there more to come? It seems what you’ve said is enough.
probably because they’ll go more into depth as to what those performance bonuses entail once the information becomes available
what an overpay… jesus. Cashman is really living up to his name by throwing cash into the dumpster like that. Make better choices plz. Weaver at most is worth a minor league contract, dude is absolutely washed.
I figured he’d be back. He showed progression working with Matt Blake.
Exactly, it’s a reclamation project for Matt Blake. And 2 million dollars isn’t a lot, not sure why it’s an “overpay” this is chump change for the Yankees.
The overpay is that the roster spot. This is one of the 13 best arms they could sign?
Pricey for a BP pitcher
Not really pricey for a bp or depth starter arm in free agency. Wouldn’t even be that pricey for a player like that in arbitration.
He’s on a minor league deal
2 mil is expensive for a minor leaguer
No team would go to arb with him.
For 2 mil, he’ll probably have to live on Staten Island or Washington Heights. Maybe a co-op in East Flatbush if he’s lucky.
It won’t surprise me at all if Cashman pulls another one out of his rear end with this guy, he goes all Matt Carpenter and turns into Cy Weaver for 2 months.
Crazy this guy is getting paid 2 mill to suck ass.
How much do you pay to suck ass
Yankees players will all come down with whiplash by May.
Starter for middle relief. That’s all. Chase still looking for a bargain ace starter.
Totally fine signing I guess. Long reliever that could slip into the rotation should the need arise. I forgot he was even there last year.
This means that a trade is likely to follow in the next day or so. Yanks are stacking up depth arms because they are about to trade away several pieces from the 40 man roster.
LOL Yankees. Dodgers spend a Billion dollars and get Ohtani, Yamamoto, Glasnow and the Yankees sign Luke Weaver.
The headline literally says its a major league deal and the article notes that he can’t be optioned to the minors without his consent. If you don’t think it’s a good move that’s fine but at least get your facts straight.
Would rather have Doodles Weaver than Marcus Stroman.
100%
I know the Yanks can find $2M under their sofa cushions but I still think they could have found better value for the money.
canyon of heroes, world series parade….will happen now for sure!
Ooo-oooh Dream Weaver…
Honestly, I’m ok with this. Rather do this than overpay for Monte or trade more for a #3 starter, which is what Cease is.
I’ll make another comment later when I stop laughing!!!
Yanks R cornering market on below avg Ps
I like this move. Hopefully he can provide middle relief start work, if he’s able to make the roster. I liked him a lot when he was just breaking into the league. He’s been roughed up the last few years, though in limited outings (22-23). Hopefully he can contribute.
I trust Matt Blake. If he said he wants Weaver around, then there must be something there.
AL East, huh. Looks like Luke will go from not knowing who his daddy was to everyone’s his daddy.