There is a stupid premium on Jered Weaver. Stupid as in dumb. Not stupid as in, “Yo, Grey your feathered hair is stupid fresh! Farrah Fawcett is prolly jealous in heaven. Flap your wings, Greyseph Hawkins, you are my angel on earth. I love you.” In the top 20 starters for 2013 fantasy baseball, I went over some of this so if you’ve been there, read that, skip ahead until the sentence starting, “Your claim to fame…” Last year, Weaver’s K-rate bottomed out to its lowest since his rookie year with a 6.77 K/9. That ranks 58th for starters. He’s between Masterson, Kuroda, Ervin Santana, Paul Maholm. That’s eeny meeny miny no. To go further with one of the guys there, Kuroda’s K-rate was 6.84, his walk rate was 2.09 and his xFIP was 3.67. Weaver’s walk rate and xFIP were 2.15 and 4.18. Oh, and Kuroda’s fastball velocity sits around 92. Weaver’s is at 88. If you were just looking at those numbers with no names attached, you’d concur Kuroda is headed for a better season in 2013 than Weaver. You, sir, are a darn fine concurrer. Speaking of Weaver’s fastball, he had the 8th worst velocity in the majors. Your grandmother could throw faster. Granted, your grandmother was a receptionist at the Miami-based Biogenesis of America clinic, but still. For xFIP, Weaver was the 27th worst in the majors between Volquez, Arroyo, Buehrle and Nolasco. Those guys couldn’t get into the Who’s Who Among American Baseball Players with $39.95 and a B+ GPA. So why is Jered Weaver overrated for 2013 fantasy baseball?
Because he’s ranked so damn high. Honestly, I’m trying to find one positive for him. Your claim to fame is being the backpacker in the background of the Wikipedia photo for a yeoman, but what’s Weaver’s claim to fame? A guy with a diminishing strikeout rate and pitch velocity? I bet if you sat down with that yeoman to multiply your smarts, you couldn’t figure out one reason why Weaver is routinely being drafted in the 4th round, about 3 rounds before I have him. He’s a fly ball pitcher in a favorable park, and in a division that has two other favorable fly ball parks, so he’s not going to be unusable, but fly balls will start to leave any park when they’re coming in at 88 MPH. In the past, he was causing batters to pop up — hit weak fly balls. His infield fly ball rates plummeted last year. Next stop for those fly balls is knocking over some bratty Orange County kid’s nachos in the outfield stands. My crystal ball says there’s a better chance he has a 4.30 ERA than within .20 of last year’s 2.81 ERA. Yes, my crystal ball deals in probabilities rather than certainties. What do you want for $9.99 out of the back of a comic book? I should’ve put that money towards getting me into the Who’s Who Among American Fantasy Baseball Bloggers.
