I Guess We're Gonna Have Fun With That Ryan Weathers Pick Up

Ryan Weathers took the mound today for his second start of spring training and, well… if the goal was to keep Mets hitters warm on a cool Florida afternoon, mission accomplished.

The left-hander lasted just two innings against the Mets, surrendering six runs—five earned—on seven hits and two walks as the Yankees cruised to a tidy 10-4 loss. Sure, the radar gun lit up at 99 mph, which is the kind of number that makes pitching labs and analytics departments start high-fiving each other like they just discovered fire. But the scoreboard had a slightly different opinion. But the Yankees see potential.

And that brings us to the Yankees’ favorite buzzword: potential.

Potential is the magical word that front offices love because it allows them to talk about what might happen someday instead of what’s actually happening right now. The Yankees’ decision-makers stare at projection models, spin rates, and charts that look like they were stolen from NASA, and suddenly a guy who just gave up a half-dozen runs in two innings becomes a “high-ceiling arm.”

Look, let’s keep it real. I wasn’t a fan of bringing Ryan Weathers in to begin with.

Was he decent at times with the Miami Marlins? Sure. But the Yankees aren’t supposed to be in the business of collecting “pretty decent sometimes.” This is supposed to be the franchise that hunts big game, not one that rummages through the baseball version of the clearance rack.

Right now, Weathers doesn’t look like a fifth starter. He looks like a sixth starter. You feel me? And no, the fact that his father is former major league pitcher David Weathers doesn’t move the needle for me. Baseball bloodlines are fun trivia, not a pitching plan.

The reality the Yankees won’t exactly highlight in their glossy social media clips is this: Ryan Weathers has never put together a full season of sustained major-league success. He’s battled injuries, struggled to consistently prevent runs, and bounced around the league as more of a depth arm than a rotation anchor.

Translation: he’s the kind of pitcher teams acquire when they’re hoping something clicks—not when they’re trying to dominate a division.

If the Yankees were truly serious about fixing their pitching staff, they would have gone out and landed a legitimate frontline arm. The kind of pitcher who makes opposing lineups sigh before the first pitch is thrown. Instead, they grabbed a “maybe.”

After the game, manager Aaron Boone shrugged it off and called the outing another step in Weathers’ buildup. Which, technically speaking, is true. Spring training is about ramping up.

But let’s also acknowledge what’s happening here: Yankees fans are once again being sold on the idea of development projects playing meaningful roles in the major leagues.

You’ve seen this movie before.

Austin Wells.

Anthony Volpe.

Now Ryan Weathers, and there will be more.

The Yankees will package it nicely, sprinkle in some Statcast graphics, post a few slow-motion bullpen clips, and suddenly the narrative becomes: just wait until the potential shows up.

Maybe it will.

Maybe it won’t.

But if you’re a Yankees fan who’s been around the block a few times, you might want to take the hype with a grain of salt like me. Do your own digging. Look at the numbers. Ignore the glossy propaganda.

Because in the Bronx these days, potential has become the most overused pitch in the organization. And unlike a 99-mph fastball, it rarely blows anyone away.