How has Weathers been so good? By using one of his best pitches less

When the Yankees dealt a quartet of prospects to acquire left-handed pitcher Ryan Weathers from the Marlins this offseason, a few things stood out.

For starters, Weathers was the seventh overall pick in the 2018 Draft and had flashed the top-line stuff that gave him such a pedigree. His 2024 season offered a glimpse at what he was capable of, posting a 3.63 ERA in 16 starts. But more notably, injuries and inconsistency had often held Weathers from realizing his ceiling.

Still, to the Yankees, the bet on upside was worth it for a 26-year-old who won’t be a free agent until 2029, especially for a lefty with a four-seam fastball that runs in the upper 90s.

Sure enough, Weathers is delivering that potential in the Bronx. He’s down to a 3.69 ERA in 23 starts, amassing 126 2/3 innings after his previous career-high was 94 2/3 innings during his rookie campaign in 2021. The southpaw was strong again on Tuesday against the Mariners, when he allowed just one run in 5 2/3 innings. Weathers had extended his scoreless streak to 22 2/3 innings before Randy Arozarena hit a solo blast.

Perhaps most interestingly, though, is that Weathers almost completely reinvented himself in the middle of this season to generate these results, with a clear change coming on July 10. After his ERA ballooned to 4.15 entering that start, he tossed 5 1/3 innings of one-run ball against the high-powered Nationals offense.

Since then, Weathers has compiled an excellent 2.10 ERA in six starts, holding opponents to one or zero runs five times. A five-run day against the Pirates was his only significant blemish in the span.

Weathers will take the ball Sunday against the Blue Jays and Cy Young contender Dylan Cease to see if he can continue this hot streak. First pitch is scheduled for 1:37 p.m. ET at Rogers Centre.

"Just feel like he's handled the season really well. New environment coming to New York. Feel like he's gotten better as the season's gone along,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday. “Feel like in a lot of ways he's at his very best right now, throwing the ball. Really has a good understanding of his arsenal, doing a good job. His secondary has really been excellent now for a while. The changeup, slider, to go along with both fastballs.

“But I feel like he's had a really good plan here these last several times out and throwing the ball really well."

So, what is that plan?

The impressive four-seamer that made Weathers such an intriguing name entering the season has become … his least used pitch.

Weathers threw just seven four-seam fastballs among 91 total pitches -- 7.7% usage -- in that July 10 start against the Nationals, the lowest percentage of four-seamers he’s thrown in an outing in his career.

And that’s no fluke, nor just a scouting report happenstance against the Nats. Weathers’ past six starts all make up the bottom-six lowest four-seam usage rates of his career, among games in which he threw at least 25 pitches. (He had one 2023 appearance in which he threw one four-seamer among just 10 total pitches.) His overall usage rate in that time was just 10.1%.

Subsequently, Weathers has increased his usage fairly evenly across each of his other four offerings, a sinker, changeup, slider and sweeper. He’s leaned most heavily on a good changeup (28.3%), which was his best pitch during his strong 2024 campaign with a run value of four.

It’s getting more depth this season, too, at just 0.7 inches of induced vertical break. That’s 4.1 more inches of “drop” than other left-handed pitchers this year, and a whole two more inches than his previous career-best.

“I think it’s just trusting the game plan, trusting [Austin] Wells behind the plate,” Weathers said Tuesday. “I feel like we’re starting to work real well as a battery together. I just want to give the team a chance to win, that’s my job.”

It’s not hard to see why Weathers and the Yankees have landed on this four-seam-scarce approach. He’d allowed 16 home runs between his first start of the season and July 9, tied for 12th-most among starters with at least 90 innings pitched. Nine of them came on the four-seamer, while opponents overall were slashing .299/.370/.649 against the pitch.

Now, since he’s varied his usage more, opponents have hit just .091 with a 33.3% strikeout rate against the heater. He’s also given up just two total long balls in his past six starts. All of that is turning into the sharpest year of Weathers’ career, in which he’s carrying his best strikeout rate (25.9%) and ground-ball rate (48.7%), as well as his second-best walk-rate (7.0%).

In fact, many teams are following this fastball-avoidant pattern as pitching continues to evolve. There’s a saying in some circles these days along the lines of, “Throw it harder, throw it less.”

Weathers certainly fits the bill. He has the 15th-highest four-seam velocity (95.8 mph) among lefties with at least 100 fastball thrown this season to go alongside a quickly diminishing usage rate.

And it’s working like a charm.