Thirteen months ago, the fantasy community was giddy with excitement about Luke Weaver, then of the Cardinals. I wasn’t in that boat, and hopefully you listened to that advice instead of the industry wide opinion as Weaver just wasn’t any good last season. Traded to the Diamondbacks in the massive Paul Goldschmidt deal this offseason, Weaver has burst out of the gates in 2019 with an impressive seven game run to start the season. Are things different this time around, and is Weaver finally ready to star on the bump?
25 years old
Bats/Throws: Right/Right
Height/Weight: 6’2”, 180 lbs.
Position: Starting Pitcher
THE NUMBERS
|
Level |
IP |
W-L |
ERA |
WHIP |
K/9 |
BB/9 |
HR/9 |
GB/FB |
|
|
2014 |
RK, A+ |
9.1 |
0-1 |
7.71 |
2.04 |
11.6 |
3.9 |
1.0 |
|
|
2015 |
A+ |
105.1 |
8-5 |
1.62 |
1.11 |
7.5 |
1.6 |
0.2 |
|
|
2016 |
AA, AAA |
83.0 |
7-3 |
1.30 |
0.93 |
10.0 |
1.3 |
0.4 |
|
|
2017 |
AAA |
77.2 |
10- |
2.55 |
1.06 |
8.8 |
2.2 |
0.3 |
|
|
2018 |
AAA |
4.0 |
0-0 |
4.50 |
0.75 |
15.8 |
0.0 |
2.3 |
|
|
Minors |
279.1 |
25-11 |
2.03 |
1.07 |
8.9 |
1.7 |
0.4 |
||
|
2016 |
MLB |
36.1 |
1-4 |
5.70 |
1.60 |
11.15 |
2.97 |
1.73 |
0.94 |
|
2017 |
MLB |
60.1 |
7-2 |
3.88 |
1.26 |
10.74 |
2.54 |
1.04 |
1.84 |
|
2018 |
MLB |
136.1 |
7-11 |
4.95 |
1.50 |
7.99 |
3.56 |
1.25 |
1.19 |
|
2019 |
MLB |
38.1 |
3-1 |
3.29 |
1.12 |
10.33 |
1.88 |
0.94 |
1.31 |
|
Career |
|
271.1 |
18-18 |
4.58 |
1.40 |
9.35 |
3.02 |
1.23 |
1.28 |
|
|
Baseball America |
Baseball Prospectus |
MLB.com |
|
2017 |
50th |
|
68th |
THE SKILLS
“Last year, it was just things sped up on me,” Weaver said. “I maybe pressed a little harder instead of taking a step back, staying over the rubber and just getting through the ball. This year has been a big step in that department.”
Though a rather sleight of build righty, Weaver has always possessed the ability to miss bats. From the start of his pro career until today, he’s been a strikeout per inning arm. He throws his fastball 93-94 mph, and the cutter comes in at about 87 mph. He also throws a changeup at 85 mph. That said, after posting a K-rate of about 28 percent in 2016-17 the mark dipped to 20 percent last season, which goes a long way to explaining why he struggled to attain the predicted levels of success. That said, his swinging strike rate his first three seasons was remarkably similar with marks of 9.8, 9.6 and 9.7 percent, all more than a percentage point below the league average. This season, the mark has leapt upwards to 11.0 percent. Why?
Let’s look at his pitch mix by comparing his career rates to his usage in 2019.
|
|
Fastball |
Cutter |
Changeup |
Curveball |
|
2019 |
52.6 |
13.7 |
25.8 |
7.9 |
|
Career |
57.8 |
6.2 |
25.0 |
11.0 |
As you can tell, he’s pretty much a two-pitch fella with the heater and changeup being thrown 83 percent of the time in his career. He’s throwing the changeup at the same rate per usual, but he has pulled back a bit on the fastball and curveball, dumping the excess pitches into that cutter. The results on the cutter haven’t been fantastic with a .313 wOBA on the pitch (the 50 percent ground ball rate is certainly nice), but cutting back on the curve, while turning to the cutter has clearly been worth it (the curveball was hit to the tune of a .387 wOBA last season).
In 2018 the changeup was hit for a .467 SLG and a .329 wOBA. This season, as he’s buried the pitch in the strike zone way more effectively, batters have a mere .311 SLG and .235 wOBA. It’s also instructive to note that Weaver has increased the K-rate on the pitch from 1 percent last year to 29 percent this season as the swinging strike rate has gone from 14 to 20 percent. The use of the changeup up, and effectively located changeup, has aided Weaver’s ability to get lefties out as his wOBA against portsiders has fallen from .363 last season to .270 this year. The changeup is also 36 out of 89 qualifies (50 pitches) in swing rate, and he’s also 26th in GB/FB rate on the pitch (2.67). It’s been an extremely good pitch.
The difference making pitch thus far has been the changeup, that and the fact that he’s using the curveball to lefties at a rate that is about double his use of the pitch against righties to start out the at-bat (he is barely using the pitch when behind in the count). In essence, he’s trying to steal an early strike with the pitch while also planting the seed in the batter’s head that he could go back to the pitch during the at-bat.
Getting the changeup down in the zone, and generating grounders on the cutter, have led to Weaver increasing his ground ball rate by three percent from last season’s 42.4 percent (currently 45.2). The resulting 1.31 GB/FB ratio isn’t anything exciting, but with his ability to miss bats that number work.
Not only is Weaver missing bats, he’s also not walking anyone. Slightly better than league average in the walk rate in the bigs prior to this season, Weaver is back to the levels that he flashed in the minors this season at 1.88 walks per nine. Weaver has a 60.4 percent first pitch strike rate, slightly above his 59.6 career mark and right on the league average. He’s likely closer to this guy than the guy who posted a 3.5+ mark last season
Here’s some more batted ball data.
The 88.7 mph exit velocity is actually up two mph from his career level.
The 11.9 percent launch angle he’s been hit for is a percentage above his career mark.
His 41 percent hard-hit rate is a career worst, and six percentage points above his career mark.
The truth is batters are putting some good swings on the pitches he’s floating up there.
It should be noted that the .724 SLG he’s allowed on 29 fly balls is certainly elevated, even with the balls being hit harder than the norm, so one would expect some regression that should help out in the overall outlook of Weaver.
PLAYING TIME
Here are his professional innings pitched totals.
2014: 9.1 innings
2015: 105.1 innings
2016: 119.1innings
2017: 138.0 innings
2018: 140.1 innings
Obviously, Weaver has never thrown 145-innings in a season. Could/should he get there this season? The answer is absolutely. In fact, it’s very reasonable to expect him to qualify for the ERA title. Of course, there’s the caveat he’s never gotten close before, though it’s clear that the D’backs have every intention of having Weaver make 30-starts for them in 2019.
The 2019 Fantasy Guru Rankings.
CONCLUSION
Is Weaver ready to be a fantasy star? I think the answer to that is no.
Is Weaver ready to be a fantasy weapon? I think the answer to that question is yes.
Weaver has changed up his pitch mix, changed the way he’s attacking lefties, and he’s back to missing bats. As long as he continues to keep the walks in check, the future seems bright, despite some somewhat concerning batted ball data. There are obvious concerns about workload, he’s yet to show that he can eat big innings, but his start to the season makes it seem like Weaver will have lasting power in 2019.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
