Brewers Sign Jeff Weaver to minor-league deal

[Time for a Miller]

Maybe this move was made more to help our struggling AAA team (2-10). We don't want our future learning how to be losers. But seriously, this move does not hurt us at all. I do not understand the fear of him being called up. If he is called up he is just a stop gap so McClung can stay in the long relief role.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

"I'll have to respectfully disagree. Even for a minor league deal.

 

Jeff Weaver is a really, really, really bad pitcher. In no way would I ever want him on the big league squad. He's beyond putrid. They'd better be paying him the bare minimum and using him as an example of how not to pitch. If that's the case, then he could be of some use in the minors. "

 

dlk9s:

 

Fair enough. I'm not doing cartwheels over the signing, but he has had some success in the majors in the past, and like I said, perhaps Boras will feed him some of his secret magic beans, and *presto!* he'll win a few games. OK, they'll probably be in AAA, but as long as we're not paying him MLB money, and he's not a bad influence, then I don't see the harm.

 

"But seriously, I like the Bush is injuried scenario."

 

May I ask, tbadder, who said Dave Bush is injured? If a Brewer official, or a spokesman like a Jim Powell said so, that's worth noting. Just askin'...

 

"I got Weaver to acknoledge by heckling in 04 when he was with the Dodgers. I called him a dirty hippy"

 

Nicely played, Bwaz!

 

Although I see him as more of a grunge character, given his resemblance to Kurt Cobain.

[Ayt]

Yuck, I know it's a minor league deal, but I simply hate Weaver and would prefer to see Zach Jackson, Narveson, or someone who we don't know is worthless get the shot if necessary. With Jackson, maybe you can hope for an explosion into a 4.90 ERA pitcher, I can't hope for that with Weaver. I just pray "track record" won't be mistaken for "able to pitch in the bigs".

I see a lot of hate for Weaver. Where does that come from?

I also don't understand why people think it a given he has nothing left. He's only 31. He's had success as recently as the 2006 post season and he had a very good year in the 2005 regular season. I don't see any reason to not add a guy like him to the mix when ZJ and Narveson are your main options in a pinch. His track record is certainly much better than theirs.

Do I expect anything from him? No. But its not like it would shock me to see him have some success either.

 

[Gopher74]

Okay, I like it if it's the beginning of their Frank recognition that their starting pitching simply isn't good enough for a world series club. Is it an improvement, no. But sometime you just gotta take baby steps.

Well, your consecutive negative posting streak is still alive...

This certainly isn't a "frank recognition" of anything, especially since their starting pitching has been pretty good so far without their number 2 starter pitching yet.

 

Exactly where would you like to, or do you think it's realistic to improve our starting pitching? Realistic is the key here because obviously it'd be great if you could run out Santana, Smotlz, Peavy and Webb to team with Sheets, but that's not going to happen.

 

Who are all these teams that have so much more talent than Sheets, Yo, Parra, Villy and Suppan?

[Gopher74]

I can't say I approve of this move at all. I'd rather have Hideo Nomo or Chan Ho Park or even Rick Helling or Elmer Dessens if the team insists on having a washed up guy who doesn't belong in the majors.

 

The reason I don't like this move is because he might get called up at some point, no matter how unlikely that seems. Any chance of him getting called up is too large. He can't get guys out except in Dodger Stadium.

 

If he was guaranteed to stay in AAA, fine. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

And Detroit...and St Louis...

The guys anything but the model of consistency, but he's been good at times during his career, he's got a great arm. Maybe Maddux can help him figure out...whatever it is that he needs to figure out so that he can harness his ability to be the pitcher he was in 02, 04 and 05 and then in the post season for the Cards. Maybe he can't, but if he can't, what do we lose? Nothing. If he can, we've gained another good arm.

 

I just don't know how this move can get anyone too worked up. It's a good move strictly for the considerable reward and the non-existent risk.

 

[NYChez]

If the Brewers absolutely, positively need an out to prevent a 9-1 deficit from turning into an 11-1 deficit, then I'd rather have Weaver out there than McClung.

[Tbadder]

Exactly where would you like to, or do you think it's realistic to improve our starting pitching? Realistic is the key here because obviously it'd be great if you could run out Santana, Smotlz, Peavy and Webb to team with Sheets, but that's not going to happen.

I agree with you, we're not going to be able to obtain anything that will make us significantly better now. That time has passed. Any improvement the Brewers experience will come from:

 

A) Sheets staying healthy

B) Yo continuing to develop

C) Parra proving himself

 

But three of our starters have kinda bitten the dust--Cappy, Bush, Vargas. I don't think that's surprising, at least I'm not surprised. That's why I mentioned before, although it's water under the bridge, that I'd be for a Young/Garza type trade or a Haren type trade, etc. Now, realistically I understand that would be hard to do, but I'd try. Look, the Brewers have an above average rotation with more upside than say the Cubbies, but potential is not production.

[aracko]

I dont think people should be worked up over this move but over the move that is going to come shortly. I dont think that Weaver is going to report to Nashville for a few weeks yet.

 

The Obvious is that we have 4 players (that can be considered expendable) who are not yet performing up to par in Dave Bush, Turnbow(who i wish we would hold onto), Seth McClung, and Gabe Gross. Coming back we have Yo and Cameron and TGJ. I believe that means that at least 3 guys have to go. Bush and Turnbow in my opinion would have alot of value to some teams so are too good to cut.

 

 

 

 

Jeff Weaver can really eat innings. At one point this guy was thought to have Ace potential. If he were the long guy out of the Pen I can handle that.

 

 

I like the following article :

 

http://ussmariner.com/2007/08/13/jeff-weaver-junkballer/

 

Jeff Weaver, Junkballer

By: Dave and filed under Mariners

 

After yesterday's performance, Jeff Weaver now leads the American League in complete game shutouts. I bet you could have gotten 1,000-to-1 on that being true back in May. To close out a successful 5-1 road trip, Weaver threw his best game of the year, dominating the White Sox in a way that makes you ask how it happened. Weaver's been a lot better since his return in early June, but he hasn't had any starts like this. What made the difference yesterday?

 

To try and answer this, I dove into the Pitch F/X system to look at the velocity and movement of his pitches yesterday in handy sortable form. There are some pretty noticable trends that jump off the page.

 

Breaking Ball, thy friend is Weaver.

 

Thanks to Weaver's repertoire, categorizing his pitches is extremely easy. Unlike Felix, who has an assortment of pitches that travel in varying velocities anywhere from 78-99, there's a significant velocity difference between Weaver's pitches. He threw 51 pitches with a velocity between 87.0-92.6 MPH, but his 52nd fastest pitch was 83.6 MPH. He didn't threw any pitch between 84-87, making the distinction between fastball and offspeed pitch very easy to recognize.

 

On the day, not counting the two HBPs that the Pitch F/X system didn't register, Weaver threw 51 fastballs and 62 off-speed pitches. The slow stuff was an assortment of mostly sliders and curve balls with a few change-ups mixed in, but he clearly decided to attack the White Sox with breaking balls.

 

This became even more dramatic as the game wore on. Of his final 30 pitches, 25 of them were offspeed pitches. That's 16% fastballs and 84% offspeed stuff. On the day, of the 113 pitches the Pitch F/X system recorded, only 22 of them were 90+, but 36 of them were 79 or slower.

 

The best pitch is strike one.

 

Here's how Weaver started each hitter he faced:

 

Owens, fastball, called strike

Fields, fastball, called strike

Thome, curveball, swinging strike

Konerko, fastball, ball

Pierzynski, curveball, ball

Dye, fastball, called strike

Podsednik, fastball, foul

Uribe, fastball, called strike

Cintron, curveball, ball

Owens, fastball, called strike

Fields, fastball, called strike

Thome, curveball, called strike

Konerko, fastball, called strike

Pierzynski, curveball, called strike

Dye, fastball, ball

Podsednik, hit by pitch (no data)

Uribe, fastball, swinging strike

Cintron, slider, double play

Owens, curveball, called strike

Fields, slider, swinging strike

Thome, slider, ball

Konerko, curveball, called strike

Pierzynski, fastball, called strike

Dye, slider, called strike

Podsednik, curveball, ball

Uribe, fastball, called strike

Cintron, curveball, called strike

Owens, fastball, groundout

Fields, slider, pop out

Thome, curveball, called strike

Konerko, fastball, called strike

Pierzynski, curveball, called strike

Dye, fastball, called strike

 

The White Sox were content to go up to the plate staring at Weaver's first offering, only swinging six times. 19 times, they stared at strike one. He only went to six 1-0 counts the whole game. When you're working 0-1 on almost every single batter, you're at a huge advantage.

 

Don't throw anything straight.

 

Even when Weaver threw a fastball, it was moving. Without getting too deep into the complexities of how the Pitch F/X system calculates movement (essentially, it takes the movement minus the expected break of a hypothetic pitch with no spin), you can look at the PFX value and see that he only threw one pitch that could be defined as arrow straight, and it was out of the strikezone. When he put it in a hitters zone, it was diving all over the place.

 

Essentially, yesterday, Weaver pulled a Moyer. He commanded everything with movement, threw strikes, mixed his pitches, and attacked the hitters with offspeed stuff.

 

It worked to perfection, obviously. The White Sox aren't a good offense, but as we saw, that ballpark is a total joke in the summer, and even ordinary flyballs can get out of there once they get up in the air. Weaver avoided pitching to contact and took advantage of Chicago's take-then-hack philosophy, peppering them with pitches they weren't expecting nor could they do anything with.

 

We probably won't see a better pitched game by a Mariner all year long. The August 12th version of Jeff Weaver is a testament to just how successful you can be with command and movement. Let's hope Felix was taking notes.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 7:18 am and is filed under Mariners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

[Tbadder]

The Obvious is that we have 4 players (that can be considered expendable) who are not yet performing up to par in Dave Bush, Turnbow(who i wish we would hold onto), Seth McClung, and Gabe Gross. Coming back we have Yo and Cameron and TGJ. I believe that means that at least 3 guys have to go. Bush and Turnbow in my opinion would have alot of value to some teams so are too good to cut.

I agree with this. In fact I was thinking last night that Gross looks like "Dead Man Walking." I wonder if he's been told something? I just can't imagine the Crew getting rid of him because they're so short on lefty bats.

[TooLiveBrew]

If Gwynn, Jr. has anything to do with Gross's spot on the roster, count me as upset. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

 

 

Geno: Let the Boras thing go!

[BCZF]

A big yawn... No risk, warm body.. Could have been Earl Weaver or Dennis Weaver or a basket weaver for as much playing time this guy'll see...

[DonMoney4Mgr]

This could be a reaction to the fact that both Narveson and Zach Jack have not looked too good at Nashville. If a starter does go down, I don't know if they have the confidence in those two quite yet.

[Baldkin]

This could be a reaction to the fact that both Narveson and Zach Jack have not looked too good at Nashville. If a starter does go down, I don't know if they have the confidence in those two quite yet.

 

I agree with the sentiment. But, we would need two starters to go down now to actually need him... since Yo is back!