 | On July 6, 2002, the Yankee's GM, Brian Cashman, had just finished a 3-way deal. When first asked about it he seemed almost apologetic. He acted as if he had just made the deal of the century. In this deal he gave up Ted Lilly, along with 2 minor league prospects in return for 25 year old Jeff Weaver. When the Yankees first got Weaver I was upset because they traded my favorite player away for someone I didn't know much about. But after seeing his first three starts with the Yankees, I don't see what all of the excitement was about. Brian Cashman's response after the deal was made was nothing but excitement. "To aquire someone of his abilities, at his age, he's 25, and being contracted to a contract that everybody can afford in this game, we're fortunate, no doubt about it," Cashman said, "We're again in a 'now' mode, and so, this is again, another sure sign that this team is dead serious about what it's trying to accomplish in that field right now." |
| When Jeff Weaver first arrived we heard all of the good things about him, naturally. One of these things was he doesn't give up the long ball! Well, while on the Yankees that's not true. He's given up 8 homers in 20 innings as a Yankee!! In his first start, against Toronto he gave up 2 3-run homers, to surrender the lead twice. In his last start he gave up a Yankee Stadium record of 5 homeruns, to the Boston Red Sox. In his last three starts he hasn't looked that great!! He was definetly lucky that the Yankee offense was there to bail him out.
Cashman metioned that getting him showed that they were in 'now' mode. The way that Weaver has been pitching showed that even though the Yankees are in 'now' mode he's definetly NOT! He needs a lot of work on his pitching which may cost him his job on a major league team. And may get him a new job on the Yanks AAA team, the Columbus Clippers. Which hurts the Yanks because while Clemens is on the DL they can't turn to anyone in the bullpen and tell them to start. That was the luxury of having Ted there. The only advantage Weaver does have over Ted is all the run support!! In Weaver's 3 starts he definetly deserved the losses and if he got the same amount of run support Ted got the first half of the season he would've had the losses without a doubt. Instead, he got 2 wins and one no-desicion. All, but 3 of Ted's starts were better than Weaver's 3, but because of the low run support Ted recieved he didn't get half of the wins he deserved. On Oakland Ted has only made two starts. His first start was a 4-0 win over Tampa Bay. The second was a no-desicion, but Oakland came out with the win anyway. Ted surrender one homerun, to Alex Rodriguez, which is better than what Jeff Weaver has done. I definetly think that Brian Cashman has made a huge mistake trading away Ted Lilly for Jeff Weaver. Ted was on the quiet side and not full of himself at all. Jeff is the complete opposite he is very self-centered and cares about himself getting the wins. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and is not the kind of guy you want to be around. The reason why Weaver was traded was for behavior the Yankees would definetly not tolerate. He would yell at his teammates if they made bad plays in the field and he was caught smoking pot on the Detroit Tigers plane! Eventually for Cashman and the Yanks this may turn into a wonderful deal, but right now it's not looking that way. It looks like Oakland got the better end of the deal. |
