Ken Rosenthal over at FoxSports.com reports that the Cardinals presumably are one of the teams rumored to be pursuing former Dodger Jeff Weaver.
I sure hope he doesn’t end up here. I’ve never cared for him as a pitcher even when he was with the Tigers. When he was traded to the Yankees, I thought that was a nightmare waiting to happen. Sure enough; Game 4 of the 2003 World Series sorta proved that inkling correct. It seems that if he gets hit around a bit, he loses his confidence and starts chucking it up there just to get the hook.
I happened to catch one of his starts in 2004 when the Dodgers were at the Stadium. The inning in particular (a shout-out to Retrosheet for jogging my memory) was the fifth, when the Cards managed to string together some hits off him, and with each successive baserunner, it seemed that his shoulders slumped more and more and more. His body language gave it away. Anyway, it was bases-loaded situation in the fifth, with the crowd really getting behind the team. He steps off and asks for a new ball to try to quiet the crowd. All that did was turn the cheers into boos. He rushed his delivery and left a pitch up to the inimitable Hector Luna, who stroked it into center to score Lankford and Edmonds.
He seems to be the way I was when I pitched Little League. The slightest bit of adversity flusters him, which leads to more adversity, which in turns flusters him more, etc.
In passing on the link to Rosenthal’s story Thursday, lboros at Viva El Birdos says the Cardinals theoretically could afford the free-agent Weaver. To do so, the team would have to trade Jason Marquis. lboros then astutely points out that it would be counterproductive given that Marquis is a similar pitcher and he’s already here.
And speaking of similar pitchers, I checked out Weaver’s comparables on Baseball Reference. While Marquis wasn’t on the list, the following dudes were: No. 7 was Our Own Sidney Ponson, and No. 3 was Brett F. Tomko. Eep! Anybody who hasn’t repressed their memories of Tomko’s 2003 (the first half, anyway) for the Cardinals will shudder in horror at the recall. Those kinds of numbers we don’t need, certainly not for the amount of money he’ll end up getting from a more pitching-starved team.
October 13, 2006 at 2:36 pm
[...] In all, a fantastic outing from Weaves. He seems to be making a habit of those, evidenced by his start in the NLDS and his last three regular-season starts. The poor body language that I’ve railed against seems to be gone, meaning he’s got actual confidence in his stuff and in himself, and it’s showing in his results. [...]