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Jered Weaver
Weaver has had a rather dramatic fall from stardom in just the last few years, as the 34-year-old is coming off the worst season of his career, posting a brutal 5.06 ERA and a .294 opponent batting average in 31 starts last season. Weaver has lost a lot of zip on his fastball as well, with his heater topping out at 84 MPH in 2016 according to Fangraphs’ PitchFX, which is the slowest he’s ever thrown. This also led to a career-high 37 home runs allowed by Weaver, as the wheels not only came off but the engine exploded all at once.
Now, I know I just made a pretty compelling argument to basically convince anyone with half a baseball brain to not sign the rapidly declining Weaver but hear me out.
Weaver’s biggest issue seems to be his command, combined with the lack of speed and movement on his fastball. Since 2010, the former Angels star’s velocity has been on steady decline, falling from around 90 MPH to 85 MPH in 2014, which is the last season Weaver posted an ERA below 4.00. His batted ball numbers also support this as his home run/fly ball rate and infield hits both spiked, which leads me to think that Weaver is having a hard time locating his pitches.
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Hard to believe Weaver was a consistent 18-20 game winner only a few seasons ago.
Looking at his contact percentages, he allowed more ‘hard’ contact (34.7% of his pitches were deemed hard contact in 2016) than he has throughout his entire career. This most likely has to do with his lack of velocity, which also reduces the movement of his pitches, making him much easier to hit. An 84 MPH heater with no movement is essentially batting practice for most MLB hitters.
Maybe Weaver working with pitching guru Chris Bosio helps get the former All-Star back on track? Weaver is a great fly-ball pitcher, similar to Kyle Hendricks who throws only slightly harder than Weaver, but if Bosio can help locate his pitches better and induce more fly balls that stay in the park I don’t see why Weaver can’t have success in Chicago.
