A swing, a miss

Yanks whiff on Weaver, for now, but they can afford it

Baseball people often act as if they know everything about the game, but the truth is, a lot of the time they're out there with a dart board and a blindfold with the rest of us. They can do the research, spend the limos full of money, give a guy every chance in the world to succeed and, still, they can end up with zippo.

It happens, even to the best of them.

"He's one of the premier young pitchers in the game," the young baseball executive said, not all that long ago. "We look for him to be a mainstay in our rotation for years to come."

That might have been just about anyone, really. It has been just about everyone in baseball, at one time or the other. But that executive, back in early July of 2002, was Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. And the premier young pitcher, the Can't Miss Kid, the projected mainstay of the Yankees' future rotations was the talented but struggling head case, Jeff Weaver.

On Tuesday, barely a year after his trumpeted trade to New York, the Yankees dumped Weaver into the minors, down to Class A. It was one of those baseball moves designed to clear up space on the roster, not some death sentence for Weaver's Big Apple career. The Yanks plan to call him up next week when rosters expand. He could find a place on the team's postseason roster, too, though it probably would be in the bullpen.

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Still, to say that the right-handed Weaver has been a bust in New York is to say that George Steinbrenner has a teensy, tiny little problem with losing. Weaver has been a spectacular disappointment. He was supposed to be the injection of youth in an aging Yankees rotation. Now, 31-year-old rookie Jose Contreras, a player who has been on the disabled list for most of the season, has supplanted him.

Before we laugh too hard at the Evil Empire's misfortune, though, know this: Any team, with the same resources, would have traded for Weaver last season. In fact, one of the reasons it was reported that the Yankees made the trade for Weaver last July -- in a three-way deal with Oakland -- was to keep the Boston Red Sox from getting him.

And, man, it was a great deal at the time. He was the hot guy, the Sidney Ponson of '02. The Yankees rejoiced when the trade went through. Everyone else moaned.

Weaver had a 3.18 ERA pitching for the Detroit Tigers in the first half of '02, with three shutouts. He is a big guy (6-foot-5) who had -- still has -- a live arm and a lot of movement on the ball. The Tigers didn't want him because of his salary, the A's wanted him but couldn't afford him and so the Yankees, even with a loaded rotation, jumped.

"I think," Detroit's Bobby Higginson said then, "he'll win a Cy Young with New York. A couple of them."

In Newton and Brookline and over in Wellesley, there's a lot of snickering going on today.

Yeah, it can happen to the best of teams. Just in recent years, the Yankees have tried on Jose Canseco, Denny Neagle and Raul Mondesi at midseason. None of them really fit. If the Yankees played World Series like they play some of their midseason deals, they'd be the Braves.

That's not to say that the Weaver deal won't pan out, eventually. The Yanks haven't given up. "We didn't send him down because he can't pitch," manager Joe Torre said Tuesday. "We just had to make room for the new people."

Even Weaver, booed at Yankee Stadium and ripped for his temper tantrums on the mound, saw the demotion Tuesday as maybe the first step back in what may be a long New York career. "This is one year out of hopefully a long time," he told reporters. "Hopefully, 10 years from now I'll say 2003 was where things built me as a person and as a pitcher."

The maddening thing for believers in the Evil Empire is that the Yankees, because they're the Yankees, can afford a misstep like this. The Yanks, in effect, can make a bad move or two and get away with it. Not everyone can.

There's no use faulting the Yankees for that. They play by the rules. They pay their payroll taxes. They have an owner who is committed to winning and who has the resources to make it happen. Not every team does.

Yes, they'll whiff every once in a while. Maybe more than most, because they can. But it happens to all of them.

John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.