Luke Weaver is the new kid in town (at 31)

The Yankees' sudden closer is making up for a misbegotten career in these playoffs.

Luke Weaver

Just before Mariano Rivera took his first step out of the Yankees’ bullpen, the first notes of “Enter Sandman” would pound their way through the speakers. The crowd, especially in postseason, would react like Parisians welcoming Lindbergh.

Decades change, as do stadiums. Closers, too. When Luke Weaver comes into a ninth inning in this Yankee Stadium, the stadium DJs must be tempted to play a lullaby, or recite from “Goodnight Moon.” Weaver is easily the best-preserved 31-year-old in baseball, a skinny fellow who doesn’t look his age and certainly doesn’t look his mileage. He has pitched, and largely failed, in every quadrant of the country. This week he’s trying to restore an empire.

Weaver didn’t need to make a save on Tuesday night. Aaron Judge’s long-awaited home run took care of that, in a 6-3 win over Cleveland that gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series. He did pitch the ninth inning, though, just to make sure, and although he gave up an equally long-awaited home run to Jose Ramirez, he again will be in charge of Outs No. 25 through 27, at least, if the Yankees lead Game 3 in Cleveland Thursday. 

Weaver had saved all four Yankee wins before that and hadn’t given up a run. In the regular season Weaver gave up a .176 batting average, 90 points lower than his career mark, and struck out 31.1 percent of the batters he faced, as opposed to 23.5 percent lifetime. His ERA was 2.89 in 2024, 4.85 in his previous eight seasons, and his WHIP was an outstanding 0.929, compared to a not-so-outstanding 1.373 prior to this.

Closers obviously come in all shapes, size and life stories. The Angels’ Troy Percival was a catcher on his first minor league team. He hit eighth and Garret Anderson, who would stroke 2,529 hits in the big leagues, hit ninth. Percival is the franchise’s save leader and, considering that you have to win a game to get a save, may hold that record forever.

Clay Holmes had handled the ninth for the Yankees through the first part of the season but, as in 2023, he ran aground. Weaver got his first save on Sept. 6, against the Cubs. He would get three more before the season ended, along with three wiins. When you strike out 25 in 12 September innings and give up only six hits, you can look like Young Sheldon and get away with it.  Not since Orel Hershiser has a pitcher had parlayed such a benign appearance with such an intimidating arm. They’re calling Weaver “the baby-faced assassin,” although Weaver said the Division Series win over the Royals brought out “the ferocious jungle cat in me.”

When given a save opportunity, Weaver hasn’t given up an earned run. Those who chart the MLB draft will remember the name, although they might have trouble believing it’s the same guy. 

He was a well-regarded pitcher at Florida State, with a 2.62 ERA his junior year, and the Cardinals took him with the 27th pick in the 2014 draft. He got through the usual stages, was named the club’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year, and poked his head into The Show in 2018, although he suffered a 6-11 record with a 4.95 ERA. In December, the Cardinals put together a package to send Arizona for Paul Goldschmidt, and Weaver was one of the condiments, The trail of tears began.

Nothing clicked in Arizona, and he went 1-9 in 2020. That’s in a 60-game season. He had shoulder problems in 2021, elbow problems in 2022, relationship problems with baseball clubs thereafter. The Diamondbacks traded him to Kansas City, who waived him in late October. Seattle picked him up and then released him. In January the Reds signed him and watched him roll up a 6.87 ERA. That ended in August when he was designated for assignment, and maybe the message was getting through. Good thing he’d been a 3.5 student at FSU and wouldn’t have much trouble finishing up.

Still, he came back for more, and went head-first into another wall, signing again with Seattle and failing to last a month. Finally the Yankees threw him a lifeline, signing him late last season. They saw something that convinced him to sign him for 2024 with a club option for 2025. So why were they right and everybody else wrong?

Well, closers are like placekickers and hockey goaltenders. The zero-sum nature of what they do can grind their minds. Weaver tries to be light-hearted, much like Adam Wainwright, his spiritual mentor in St. Louis. When Weaver was drafted, he said the Florida State experience has helped him “because I’m much better-looking now” and talked of his interest in birding. He claimed his main goal was to find the blue duckbill-platypus hummingbird, of which there were only two in the world.

But attitude is easier to maintain when the ball is nicking the corners. The Yankees convinced Weaver to ditch his slider and curveball and rely instead on fastballs and changeups. With the help of Gerrit Cole, Weaver also adjusted his four-seam grip and picked up a couple of extra mph’s, plus movement. Since he was already programmed to accept success and turn it into confidence, he’s walking in Rivera’s footsteps, if not his playlist.

Cleveland was supposed to have the nuclear bullpen in this series, but Stephen Vogt, who is likely to be the A.L. Manager of the Year in his first season, is as unwilling as a teenager to stay off the phone. Cade Smith is Cleveland’s top setup man for closer Emmanuel Clase, and maybe the best pitcher in the league at that particular task, but Vogt used him in the second inning Tuesday. The Yankees emerged with a 3-0 lead and, sure, it could have been worse, but the Guardians churned through six other pitchers, and Judge got his late home run off Hunter Gaddis, one of four Cleveland relievers who worked 70-plus games and had a sub-2.00 ERA. Ben Lively, at times the Guardians’ best starter this year, finished up. That’s the chaos you create when you pull starter Tanner Bibee after four outs.

Not that anything matters very much when the batting order goes 0-for-7 with men in scoring position, as Cleveland did. The Yankees were able to survive a couple of BWI violations (Baserunning While Impaired) on the part of Anthony Rizzo and Jazz Chisholm and still win.

This followed the Yankees’ Game 1 win, when the Guardians justifiably removed Alex Cobb in the second when he walked the bases loaded. They brought in rookie Joey Cantillo, who immediately wild-pitched two runs home with two out and gave the Yankees, and Carlos Rodon, a 3-0 lead that became a 5-2 final.

If the Yankees win, there will be a lot said and written about money, and that Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City, the other teams in the A.L.’s Final Four, had about as much chance as the Benelux countries in 1940. And it’s true that the Yankees, Dodgers and Mets have the wherewithal to outspend their personnel mistakes, which have been considerable.

But anybody could have had Luke Weaver at almost any time and, truthfully, almost everybody did. New York not only signed him, it decoded him, and thus created The End Of The Innocence, in case Weaver is seeking a soundtrack.

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