How Concerned Do You Need To Be About Jered Weaver?

By Bobby DeMuro
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Updated: April 11, 2015

(Image via Twitter)

Jered Weaver didn’t do so hot on Opening Day, but for goodness’ sake, he was pitching against Felix Hernandez, and King Felix was lights out, probably because he might win the Cy Young Award this year.

Weaver, though, gave up eight hits – but no walks – across six innings and allowed four runs, while only striking out one batter. Four runs across six frames is nothing to write home about, but with some of the offensive threats that the Angels have, that line will also keep them close (enough) in many games this summer.

However, if you read baseball blogs, everyone everywhere thinks Weaver is, well, in big trouble.

None of those writers are wrong, per se, especially at a time when more and more pitchers are throwing harder and harder. Hell, an also-ran after-thought middle reliever for the Dodgers can routinely touch 95 MPH; things weren’t this way even five years ago in baseball.

So when Jered Weaver throws up 84 MPH meatballs on Opening Day, well, the questions are bound to come in: is he hurt? Is he old? Is he ineffective? Should they take him out of the rotation?

FanGraphs has probably the most sensible response to all of this, and they look at contact rates and pitch data to make their case. It’s a smart one, better than some of the mindless knee-jerking.

Let’s get back to Opening Day, though: the issue isn’t the 84 MPH; it’s the meatballs. As FanGraphs notes Weaver himself saying, he failed to locate pitches and left too many balls up in the zone, giving up extra base hits and failing to give the Halos a chance to compete against King Felix, who was giving up, well, nothing on Monday afternoon.

There is probably a bottom-out level of velocity, and maybe Weaver is getting relatively close to it; you can’t throw 65 MPH in the big leagues and expect to succeed, obviously. But 84 MPH is still well within the realm of possible success (just ask Greg Maddux or Jamie Moyer, you velocity-lovers), and nobody should be all the-boy-who-cried-wolf on him (yet).

There is one thing to think about with low velocity, though: Weaver’s margin of error is disappearing. He knows it, discussing location problems in his postgame interview, so that’s good. He has to hit the knees – on the black – pretty much every time. 84 MPH left over the plate is exceedingly easier to hit than 90 MPH over the plate, which is easier to hit than 95 MPH over the plate.

So this year, when you watch Jered Weaver, disregard the gosh darn radar gun for two seconds, but really focus on his location and pitch execution. If he can stay down in the zone and away from the meaty part of the plate, well, there’s no reason to believe he can’t be the same Jered Weaver from last year, and the year before, and the year before that.

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