In case you didn't hear the late news, the Yankees have obtained Jeff Weaver from Detroit in a 3-way deal with Oakland. The deal is:

*Yanks get Weaver from Tigers;
*A's get Ted Lilly & 2 prospects from Yanks;
*Tigers get 1B Carlos Peña, P Frank German & a player to be named from A's.

Lilly was supposed to pitch tomorrow against Toronto in Roger Clemens' turn in the rotation. Now Weaver will take that spot. I guess this goes down as injury protection for the Yankees, in case Clemens (40 in Aug.), Wells (39), Hernandez (somewhere north of 35) or Pettitte (coming off elbow trouble) break down. Also, one of the top pitching prospects, Branden Claussen, just went down for the year. But then, where does Stirling Hitchcock fit?

I hate to see Lilly go - he seemed to be rounding into shape as a good pitcher. Plus he was kinda cute. Weaver is a year younger (25 vs. 26 for Lilly) and signed through 2005. Now let's see how Weaver pitches for a good team.

Great trade for the A's: Pena was a flop and Lilly is a stud. He should thrive in that more pitcher friendly Oakland/Alameda/Network Associates toxic waste dump on the other side of the Bay Bridge. Lilly gives the A's four solid starters in the rotation.

The addition of Jeff Weaver to the Yankees should be interesting. Team chemistry has been important to the Yankee run and Weaver is a one-man chemistry-destruction crew. Few players seem to be more despised by teammates and opponents alike. Will Weaver end the all-for-one, one-for-all camraderie of the Yankee lockerroom? Or, finally playing for a winner, will Weaver stop being a whiner, just shut up and win?

Might be a good trade for the Tigers too. Pena needs a fresh start. The Tigers need a first baseman. Weaver was walking anyway.

Charlie in the Trees, I live in the Detroit area and am a huge baseball fan! Jeff Weaver is the ulimate competitor. He had many friends on the Tiger's team. In fact, earlier in the week when Brian Moehler made his first start in over a year, Weaver made the comment that he is glad that the "Ace" is back!!!! It was a real classy gesture!! I remember last year when Weaver lost the opener to the Twins. He pitched a brilliant game and should have won except the Tiger's could not hit Radke and they made a few bonehead defensive plays that were not ruled errors, but should have been! Instead of blaming his fielders or hitters, Weaver just said that he should have pitched better!!! Weaver is his own worst enemy! He expects perfection out of every pitch!!! I will take a Jeff Weaver on my team anyday!!!! The Yankees got a bargain!! He is signed through 2005 at an anuual rate of $5.5 million! If he was a free agent, he could ask for almost double that! This trade does not make any sense! How do you cry about not having any pitching for a decade, then trade the only prospect that you drafted that ever panned out away for a prospect first baseman? This is a fire sale and the only victims are the fans of Detroit!!!!! Ilitch is bracing himself for the strike!!! I know Weaver gets a bad rap from pitching inside! He also got some bad publicity because of the brawl with Mr. "Good for Baseball" Mike Sweeney! Remember, Mike Sweeney charged the mound and threw his baseball helmet at Weaver when Weaver did not take off his gold necklace around his neck when Sweeney asked him! I would like to see Sweeney ask Barry Bonds to take off a few of his stuff! Weaver got the blame for that incident though!!!

Now that I've had a chance to think about it ... this trade makes even less sense for the Tigers.

I'm no fan of Jeff Weaver. And I think it's open to dispute how many fans he had in the Tiger lockerrroom -- after all, he did vocally complain that his teammates did not back him up in the Mike Sweeney "brawl."

Still, when I heard about this trade, I assumed that Weaver's stats would get worse, as he is leaving Comerica, which has been a great pitcher's park. How pitcher friendly is Comerica?:

Detroit Tigers Team ERA, 2002, home: 4.33
Detroit Tigers Team ERA, 2002, away: 5.45
Detroit Tigers Team ERA, 2002, overall: 4.96

Big advantage to the Tiger pitchers in Comerica. I was hoping that Weaver would be in for a reality check, with that huge of a differential between team home and road ERA ... until you look at Weaver's individual stats:

Jeff Weaver ERA, home: 4.00
Jeff Weaver ERA, away: 2.24
Jeff Weaver ERA, overall: 3.18

Yikes. Weaver's been virtually unhittable outside of pitcher-friendly Comerica this season. He shouldn't be hurt by this trade at all. His 2002 numbers are a bit of fluke because, over his career, his numbers are slightly better at home than on the road. But still. The Yankees are going to get very good production from Weaver.

The trade makes no sense for the Tigers from a pure salary-dumping angle. Seven Tigers make more per season than Weaver. From ESPN, these were the opening day salaries for 2002 Detroit Tigers:

Dean Palmer: $8,000,000
Jose Lima: $7,250,000
Damion Easley: $6,250,000
Bobby Higginson: $5,850,000
Dmitri Young: $5,500,000
Steve Sparks: $3,000,000
Brian Moehler: $2,400,000
Jeff Weaver: $2,350,000

Of course, there's no market for Jose Lima. And they're going to have to eat Dean Palmer's fat contract. So I don't see that Tigers were economically motivated to dump Weaver.

There had to have been some other reason for this trade. The national media seem to be indicating that the Tigers had some sort of obligation to dump Weaver. Even the fact that he might be despised by his teammates is not enough of a reason: no one on the Giants roster likes Barry Bonds either, but I think, to a man, each Giant (even Jeff Kent, maybe) would rather cut off his throwing arm than see Bonds traded.

Something else is going here.

Game 5 of the AL Divisional Playoff-Ted Lilly outpitches Jeff Weaver, aided by a huge error by Raul Mondesi, sending the A's to the AL Championship Series. Take that, Steinbrenner!

Unfortunately for the A's, they will be taken out by the boys from the Twin Cities!!!

(Oh c'mon, a guy can dream can't he!!! )

[ July 06, 2002: Message edited by: George_vikingfan ]

Rick62, I feel your pain with the loss of Weaver; but you and CITT, what's not to understand about this deal - Major league baseball teams are all farm teams for the Yankees and a couple other teams that can easilly scrub up money...sure every once in a while a Kansas City or Minnesota wins it all but not usually. On that topic, it's hard to even be a high school fan in my area, we have so many schools with open enrollment, booster club presidents going to Serbia and bringing back 6'10" studs to play hoops, kids transferring schools 3 times because another coach "convinces" them, coaches from other areas "scouting" 6th grade football leagues, no neighborhood rivalries any more. The future qb at Ohio State, he lived with his high school coach during the school year (20 miles from his home) instead of going to his home school. I think I'll stick with the NFL, everything there seems to be even

OSU fan, thanks for putting it in perspective! Charlie is correct also in the fact that Weaver should have been a lower priority if this was a purely salary dumping deal! It is just frustrating when the club starts to hype a player when they are drafted! The player makes a quick ascent to the majors and proves he belongs there. The player agrees on a very reasonable contract then the club, who for years have been saying that their number 1 priority has been to get better pitching, dumps him for prospects that have not proven anything!!!! I am at the point where I really don't care if baseball goes on strike and shuts down!!!!!! It is sad because baseball was a real passion of mine growing up!!! Thanks for letting me vent OSU and Charlie!!!!!

Wasn't the story at the time of the brawl that Weaver had "questioned Sweeney's manhood," i.e. called him a faggot or some other Magic Word?

Everything I've read and seen about Weaver indicates he's likely to be one of the best AL pitchers for the next few years. *Sigh* Let's trade the All-Star team to the Stankees...