Luke Weaver entered this season with high expectations. The journeyman—who had posted a 6.44 ERA while bouncing around between five teams during the 2022 and 2023 campaigns—unexpectedly emerged as a viable back-end reliever with the Yankees in 2024, pitching to a 2.89 ERA in 84 innings and taking over the closer role down the stretch from an embattled Clay Holmes. He excelled in October, including a dominant World Series run in which he allowed no runs and just one hit in five innings of work.
With
the acquisition of Devin Williams in the offseason, Weaver was expected to return to a setup role. Neither side of the equation really ended up working out.
Grade: C
2025 Statistics: 64.2 IP, 3.62 ERA, 72 K,, 113 ERA+, 3.89 FIP, 10.0 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 0.5 fWAR
2026 Contract Status: Free Agent
Weaver got off to a hot start, not allowing his first run until his 14th appearance of the year on May 5th. By then, history had repeated itself, with the veteran once again replacing a more experienced closer in the ninth. Williams’ abysmal opening month and change gave the Yankees little choice but to turn to the man who had served them so well the year prior.
Weaver continued to dominate, keeping his ERA to 0.73 until a May 31st outing in which he allowed a run in garbage time. He strained his hamstring warming up the next day and landed on the IL.
That’s when the Dream Weaver’s storybook Yankees’ tenure took a nosedive. He missed under three weeks but was not the same pitcher upon his return. The 31-year-old allowed multiple runs in three straight appearances to begin July, ballooning his numbers and calling into question his reliability as the Yankees entered a critical stretch. He would never regain a share of the ninth, ceding first to Williams (again) and then to David Bednar, who came aboard at the Trade Deadline and quickly asserted himself as a set-it-and-forget-it closer.
Weaver’s season remained up-and-down, as is often the case with relievers. He broke off several solid scoreless stretches, but allowed three and five runs in separate September implosions. By the end of the season, he was a clear third in the pecking order behind Bednar and Williams. Still, Weaver’s stats on the season were respectable and, given the fact that they were so starkly inflated by a few bad outings, there was hope that he could return to form in the postseason.
Alas, dear reader, he did not. After tossing 6.1 scoreless innings in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, Max Fried handed the baton to Weaver with a one-run lead. He promptly walked the eight-hole hitter, gave up a double to the nine-hole hitter, and allowed a two-run single to pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida to flip the lead around.
It was a humiliating outing in which Weaver looked completely lost before exiting as soon as he reached the three-batter minimum. That brief appearance in an eventual loss shook manager Aaron Boone’s confidence in his erstwhile closer to the point that he didn’t appear in either of the next two must-win games.
After the Yankees came back to take that series, Weaver had a shot at redemption in a remarkably similar situation in the ALDS. Entering in the seventh inning of the series’ first game with a one-run lead, the embattled reliever walked his first batter and then allowed two base hits before once again getting yanked without recording an out.
All three runners would eventually come around to score as a close game favoring the New York turned into a laugher for Toronto, who coasted to a 10-1 victory. Weaver at least got the chance to record one out in another blowout loss the following day, avoiding the indignity of a postseason without retiring a single batter. Whether he was actually pitch tipping or just all up in his own head about it (as he confessed he might be), it was ugly.
There’s a very real chance that ALDS will mark the end of Luke Weaver’s tenure in pinstripes as he prepares to hit free agency. Considering the two-year, $4 million contract he inked before the 2024 season, his time with the Yankees has to be considered a clear success — his performance in the 2024 playoffs alone validated the agreement and he’ll always have that moment of closing out the pennant in Cleveland. Still, for this one-time fan favorite, Weaver’s struggles down the stretch this year and complete dismantling in the playoffs will leave a sour taste in the mouths of Yankees fans when they recall his stint in the Bronx.
