January 09, 2006
Free Weaver
Jeff Weaver and the Los Angeles Dodgers failed to reach an agreement last night, and Weaver will likely be pitching for one of the other 29 clubs come spring training. He cannot sign with his current team until May 1.
Weaver is a tough pitcher to figure out. I look at his stats and think he should be a better pitcher than he actually is. His strikeouts are fine, his walks allowed are very good and until this year he kept the ball in the park. He does have a huge flaw, however, giving up power to lefties. The splits in the Day by Day Database go back to 2000, so we miss the first year of Weaver's career, but look at his huge platoon difference.
Another flaw with Weaver is how he's done with ducks on the pond. Look at this numbers with the bases empty vs. runners in scoring position over the last six seasons. A 50 point jump in OBA and a 40 point jump in slugging percentage. And he's just been creamed with runners on third base and < 2 out. If a team has a opportunity to score against Weaver, the run finds a way to cross the plate.
Hmm... the vs. LHB #'s don't look that unusual to me. I'm accustomed to seeing a split difference around 100-150 points of OPS. I calculate a difference of 151 (816-665). Though, it looks like he's been more split lately, ESPN calculates his three year ('03-'05) splits as .632 (vs. RHB) and .875 (vs. LHB) for a difference of 243, which does seem out-of-the-ordinary to me.
Looks like the situation he can't cope with is a man on first and a steal threat (nobody on 2nd). It'd be interesting to see if he's better when the guy on 1st is a poor basestealer :)
maybe the angels should pick him up. or mariners or padres. if i'm a west coast team w/ a big park, i would take a look.
There's always talk about whether clutch hitting exists, but what about pitchers who crumble in clutch situations. It seems like there's always a few pitchers out there who seem fine until there's a runner in scoring position.
The whole Dodger pitching staff was hard to figure out this year. Their staff seemed loaded with guys who seemed capable both of brilliance and of awful meltdowns.
Maybe Weaver's del. from the stretch varies greatly from the windup.
maybe he will go back to the tigers...they always seem to make a big splash long after everyone else has gotten theirs
back to the yankees. hahaha
i could actually see the mets making a late play for him, but i hope not, although he might be a decent fit in shea as a #4. my gut still says tigres.
