The introduction of a player who signed the richest contract ever bestowed upon a lefty pitcher at times sounded more like the introduction of a fallen former top prospect. Or maybe a journeyman capable of more.
Not long after the Yankees took a flier on Luke Weaver, pitching coach Matt Blake praised his “interesting mix” with a few pitches the club thought it could tweak. Just a few years ago with Deivi Garcia, the Yankees called the former phenom too “rotational” in his delivery and believed that simplifying his rotation would be the key to unlocking his potential. With a (briefly active) trade-deadline addition in Enyel De Los Santos last season, Aaron Boone cited some hopeful “little tweaks here and there that allow a guy to move the needle and get a little bit better.”
The Yankees, like every major league team, aim to take marginal major league pitchers, twist a few knobs in pitch shape or pitch usage or arm slot or windup or seemingly any other factor, and yield a productive pitcher. They take someone else’s trash (or their own) and oftentimes successfully pull off a bit of alchemy. Such tweaks make sense for Weaver, a former first-round pick who had not yet tasted much major league success; for Garcia, who had risen to become one of the best prospects in baseball before falling; for De Los Santos, who is a journeyman from whom the Yankees thought they could extract more.
It is less common that such meat on the bone is cited during the introduction of a two-time All-Star signed to an eight-year, $218 million contract.
