Padres Add Weaver to Wide Open Rotation Tryout

The Padres added a well known arm to their wide-open rotation race, with Jered Weaver taking his 2000+ career innings down to San Diego for one year and $3 million. Weaver was one of the best pitchers in baseball from 2010-2012, going 51-25 with a 2.73 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP over 97 starts, but his velocity and performance have diminished significantly since then. Last season, he averaged just over 83 MPH on his fastball, which was the slowest in recorded (since 2008) history by a non-knuckleballer according to Daren Willman. His ERA has gone up every year since 2011, starting at 2.41 and steadily climbing to 2.81, 3.27, 3.59, 4.64, and finally, 5.06 last season. Fortunately for Weaver, tryouts for the Padres' rotation are essentially open to the public, as current candidates include Christian Friedrich (5-12, 4.80 ERA, 1.41 WHIP), Luis Perdomo (9-10, 5.71, 1.59), Jhoulys Chacin (6-8, 4.81, 1.44), Clayton Richard (3-4, 3.33, 1.66), and Paul Clemens (4-5, 4.04, 1.44) as the frontrunners. Unless his fastball velocity diminishes even further, Weaver should have no issue cracking the rotation, and at the very least, his experience will be beneficial to the young guys in that rotation. Of the other names I mentioned in the rotation, only Richard is into his 30's. Weaver is a Los Angeles area (Simi Valley) native, but he won't be heading too far from home upon leaving the Angels. For his career, the former Long Beach State Dirtbag is 150-93 with a 3.55 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP over 322 starts, all with the Los Angeles Angels.