Luke Weaver and the Rare High Leverage Long Reliever

Luke Weaver is having a breakout season for the Yankees in 2024. Despite being a starter for the majority of his career, Weaver has settled nicely into a long reliever role for the Yankees.

This has paid dividends for the Yankees, who bought low on Weaver with a one-year, $2 million deal after Weaver posted a 6.40 ERA with three teams in 2023. One of those teams was the Yankees, where he tallied 13.1 innings with solid results.

In 2024, Weaver has quickly worked his way up the ladder of trust in the Yankees bullpen, collecting tons of huge outs for an otherwise shaky Yankees bullpen.

Now, Weaver is showing how important the role of a long reliever who can get big outs is, and will hopefully continue doing so through the playoffs for the Yankees.

 

How Is He Doing This?

When looking at Weaver’s career stats up until this point, it’s easy to be shocked by his quick turnaround in 2024. After posting a 5.14 ERA and 4.31 FIP in 574.1 MLB innings prior to 2024, Weaver has generated a 2.87 ERA and 3.73 FIP thus far in 2024.

Weaver’s walk-to-strikeout ratios were usually close to average from 2016-2023, leading his FIP to not be as inflated as his ERA, yet Weaver allowed 1.4 home runs per nine innings over that time while allowing over 10 hits per nine innings.

Weaver’s Stuff+ was usually close to average too, but he had some real problems avoiding damage on his fastball and developing secondaries to limit hard contact. While Weaver certainly had the potential to develop further, the constant changes to his arsenal never really took.

Still, once Weaver joined the Yankees, almost every aspect of his game improved.

In 2024, Weaver has pitched to a 2.97 ERA and 3.72 FIP over 60.2 innings, totaling 1.91 WPA (Win Probability Added) despite accumulating -5.26 WPA in his career prior to 2024.

From a fantasy perspective, Weaver has collected 16 holds, and while he hasn’t collected a save, he has four wins and continues to improve his impressive K/BB%. If you’re looking to fill a relief spot with an arm who can get some wins and limit runs, Weaver could be your guy.

Weaver has done this by simplifying his pitch mix, improving the stuff of each pitch, and changing his approach as a now relief pitcher.

Compared to years past, Weaver has dropped his slider, sweeper, and sinker, and has thrown only a handful of curveballs.

Weaver’s Stuff+ is where his true improvements shine. It has jumped from 95 in 2023 to 122 in 2024, at the expense of a minor drop in Location+.

While some loss of command could be due to his new mechanics, which also has resulted in a tick or two mph increase on each pitch, Weaver has adapted by throwing only 39.1% of his pitches in the strike zone.

In years past, this was a huge problem for Weaver. He could only get his fastball over for called strikes, while his secondaries would be crushed in-zone. Now, Weaver is intentionally throwing both his secondaries and his fastball out of the zone.

This has helped Weaver see his Chase% and Whiff% skyrocket, while his quality of contact allowed has been far better than in the past.

Weaver’s fastball may be showing the most improvement out of all of his pitches.

In 2023, Weaver’s fastball struggled due to mediocre shape, a lack of extension, and a relatively common approach angle.

In 2024, Weaver has added a couple of inches of extension, two inches of vertical break, and even two mph of velocity.

While his command worsened, his misses have never really been in bad locations.

Weaver rarely misses middle-middle to either-handedness hitters, and while you’d like to see Weaver in-zone a little more frequently against righties with his fastball, his newfound ability to throw his secondaries for called strikes without getting punished has helped his fastball get chases.

These chases didn’t always result in whiffs. While his 27.2% Whiff% with the fastball is excellent, his 14.8% PO% and 51.9% FB% are both well above average, indicating that even when Weaver allowed contact, they weren’t often line drives (18.5% LD%).

Still, Weaver has been hit hard (30.4% HC%), although the damage hasn’t been nearly as steep as in years past.

 

Dominating When It Counts

As mentioned earlier, Weaver has made big contributions to the Yankees winning, as his 1.91 WPA easily leads the team’s bullpen and ranks 15th in MLB among relievers. As Weaver isn’t even a closer and typically pitches from the sixth to eighth inning, this becomes even more impressive.

Fangraphs’ Clutch stat, which describes how much better or worse a player does in high-leverage situations, places Weaver third among all relievers in MLB.

In 56 high-leverage plate appearances, Weaver has allowed only five singles, while collecting 14 strikeouts and no extra-base hits. Hitters have a minuscule .321 OPS in these situations.

Because of this, Weaver has easily earned the trust of Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who has continued placing Weaver into challenging scenarios, with Weaver rarely faltering.

 

What Does This Mean for the Yankees?

For any team, having an elite reliever capable of tackling more than an inning is a privilege very few have. While it might be a little early to put Weaver in that “elite” category, the Yankees were quite desperate to fill the hole Michael King left before converting to a starter and, eventually, the Padres.

In the final month of 2023 when King converted to a starter, pitchers Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez filled a similar spot, albeit in lower leverage. As King was excellent throughout the year, Brito and Vasquez picked up right where he left off, pitching to a 1.35 ERA and 3.52 ERA in September, respectively.

As all three were part of the Juan Soto trade package, the Yankees had a gaping hole in the spot where their long relief depth was. Outside of Weaver, options like Clayton Beeter, Will Warren, and Dennis Santana were their “best” options. Through a combination of poor performance, injuries, and inexperience, Weaver quickly proved himself to be the ideal candidate.

Having a reliever who can not only get the best hitters out but can also pitch for more than one inning can be crucial to teams succeeding down the stretch of a season. Teams like the Phillies with Matt Strahm or the Orioles with Keegan Akin have shown this, although they have seen far less success than Weaver in high-leverage situations.

Because of all of this, Weaver has cemented his status as my favorite player in 2024. As a Yankees fan, I couldn’t have been happier to see such a positive and focused influence in the bullpen succeed as Weaver has. But as a baseball fan, there’s nothing better than seeing a former top prospect figuring it out, even as a 30-year-old reliever.

While the Yankees may only have him for the season, I hope Weaver continues to shine wherever he plays in the future. He’s been a pleasure to watch this year, and will hopefully earn a well-deserved payday in the offseason.