Yankees Pitcher Has Fatal Flaw That Must be Corrected Before it's Too Late

The New York Yankees were quiet when it came to making major moves this offseason. They re-signed Cody Bellinger, brought Trent Grisham back on a qualifying offer and didn't do a whole lot else.

The Yankees did, however, acquire pitcher Ryan Weathers in a trade with the Miami Marlins, a deal that certainly came out of left field.

New York was aiming to acquire a frontline starter like Freddy Peralta, but the Milwaukee Brewers' asking price proved to be too exorbitant for the Yankees.

Weather was certainly an interesting consolation prize given the fact that he averaged 96.9 mph on his fastball last season, which ranked second among all left-handed pitchers. The only hurler ahead of him? Tarik Skubal.

That's some pretty good company, but even with Weathers boasting elite velocity, he is still missing one major component: strikeouts.

Weathers fanned 37 hitters over 38.1 innings of work in 2025, and in his larger sample size of 16 starts the year prior, he averaged a pedestrian 8.3 strikeouts per nine innings.

The 26-year-old entered the big leagues with the San Diego Padres back in 2021 and has accumulated 281 frames since then, recording a lifetime 7.5 K/9.

For a pitcher who throws as hard as Weathers, that's awfully puzzling, and his 8.5 K/9 in the minor leagues is further proof that he simply isn't a heavy strikeout guy.

It's a clear sign that Weathers — who employs a five-pitch mix that includes a four-seamer, a changeup, a sweeper, a sinker and a slider — doesn't quite have a putaway pitch, and that could prevent the lefty from ever becoming a genuinely reliable starter.

Weathers relies mostly on his fastball and his offspeed pitch, which clearly isn't making hitters miss. At least not often.

You would think that a left-handed pitcher with top-tier velocity like Weathers would throw a lot of sliders, but he rarely uses the pitch.

In fact, Weathers only utilizes his slider 3.6 percent of the time. Perhaps he's just not comfortable throwing it, but it's certainly odd for such a hard-throwing southpaw to not have a biting slider.

We did see the former first-round pick throw his slider a bit more in his Spring Training debut earlier this week, so maybe he is working on it.

The problem is that Weathers' fastball doesn't really have much movement. It tends to sit relatively flat, allowing hitters — even lefties — to tee off.

This is why developing a dependable slider is so important for Weathers to start racking up strikeouts and, in turn, experience long-term success.

Weathers isn't going to become a truly dominant arm unless he figures out how to put hitters away, and the slider could be the key.

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