Yankees Mag: Cosmic Relief

As a pitcher, closing out ballgames is not an easy way to make a living. You never know when your next opportunity will come, and when it does, it’s up to you alone to protect the lead that your teammates have worked so hard to build. It’s a stressful gig under any circumstance, but some save opportunities are especially tricky.

Consider the situation Yankees reliever Luke Weaver found himself in last Sept. 6. His team had been locked in a tight battle with Baltimore for the AL East lead all season long. Three days earlier, he had seen the team’s closer -- and his good friend -- Clay Holmes get tagged with his 11th blown save of the year, allowing a walk-off grand slam to Texas’ Wyatt Langford that knocked the Yanks out of first place. And so, when the Yankees’ next save opportunity arose and manager Aaron Boone needed to secure a win at Wrigley Field, he pivoted to Weaver, a former starter who had never been a closer in any of his nine big league seasons.

Weaver didn’t ask to be put in that situation. A devout Christian and dedicated family man known for being a great teammate, it is not in his nature to try and steal someone else’s job. But over a long and winding career filled with highs and lows, he has learned the mental acuity it takes to succeed at his job, no matter what he is asked to do. With three weeks left in the regular season, Weaver wasn’t thinking about the AL pennant race or the sudden shake-up in the Yankees’ bullpen hierarchy as he jogged out to the mound in Chicago. He was simply thinking about getting outs.

Mixing in his 90 mph cutter among a steady stream of high-90s four-seamers, Weaver quickly struck out the first two Cubs he faced. He got ahead of Cody Bellinger, 0-2, but then issued a free pass on four straight balls. An 11-pitch battle with Isaac Paredes ensued, and after retiring the third baseman on a grounder up the middle, the 31-year-old let out a short roar and embraced catcher Austin Wells, having successfully converted his first career save opportunity.

Yankees fans may not remember the exact details of Weaver’s Sept. 6 outing, but they likely recall his postgame interview in the visitors’ clubhouse. Asked how excited he was to be put in that “unexpected” spot, he broke it down as such: “Well, I could give you the ‘correct’ answer, the professional answer, or I could give you an actual answer. I couldn’t see straight. I was blacked out for the most part. It was pure adrenaline.” Pressed to expand, Weaver described having “heightened vision that then becomes blurry, a heart rate that feels uncontrollable, a numbness that goes through the body; yet everything is working at the same time.”

The surreal experience wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. He recalled one other time in his career when he had a similar sensation. Nine years earlier, in the same ballpark, Weaver was thrust onto a big league mound for the first time, starting on short notice for the Cardinals against the eventual World Series champion Cubs.

It wouldn’t be the last time the right-hander would have pitching déjà vu in 2024. Fortunately for the Yankees, Weaver’s previous experiences would prove invaluable as he navigated increasingly treacherous waters.

***

To gain an understanding of how Weaver was able to emerge as a ninth-inning savior for the 2024 Yankees, one must travel back even earlier than his 2016 debut with the Cards, all the way back to his home state of Florida, where any baseball notoriety is hard-earned.

The middle of three boys, Weaver was born in Orlando, but grew up less than an hour north in DeLand. He and his brothers spent countless hours playing basketball in the driveway and romping around the woods of their family’s 16-acre property, but it became clear at an early age that baseball was Luke’s forte. By the time he was a senior at DeLand High, he was a second-team Rawlings All-American that the Toronto Blue Jays would spend their 19th-round pick on in 2011.

The wiry, 6-foot-2-inch Weaver was intent on going to college, though, weighing offers from the University of Florida and his hometown school, Stetson University, where he had watched DeLand’s own Jacob deGrom morph from a light-hitting shortstop into an intriguing pitcher (and future two-time Cy Young Award winner) taken in the ninth round by the Mets in 2010. Weaver -- who also played shortstop -- wanted to remain a two-way player in college and had made a verbal commitment to do so at the University of Central Florida. But late in his senior year, his dream school (and his mom’s alma mater), Florida State, reached out with an offer to come pitch for the Seminoles.

Even though it would mean giving up hitting, Weaver leaped at the opportunity to play for FSU and its legendary head coach. Mike Martin had been at the helm in Tallahassee since 1979, when George Steinbrenner hired Dick Howser away from the ’Noles to manage the Yankees, and would eventually end his career in 2019 with a Division I-record 2,029 victories and a plaque in the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

A “real strong Southern guy; very thick accent,” Martin was fond of calling players by where they came from, and he gave “DeLand” opportunities as a freshman that Weaver was grateful for. He appeared in 16 games for a ’Noles team that was ranked No. 1 in the nation for several weeks and made it to the semifinals of the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. Weaver had some good moments -- seven innings of four-hit ball in a 9-1 win over Stetson was one highlight -- but with a 5.93 ERA and a 40:21 K/BB ratio in 41 innings, nothing was guaranteed as Weaver approached his sophomore campaign. He needed to make some adjustments -- physically and mentally.

After playing alongside Aaron Judge for the Brewster Whitecaps of the Cape Cod Baseball League that summer, Weaver returned to Florida State determined to walk fewer batters and give his team a better chance to win whenever he was on the mound. He simplified his mechanics by ditching his old-school, glove-over-the-head windup and keeping his hands close to his body, which helped improve his command. Just as importantly, he simplified his mental approach.

“There was something to be earned, so I just changed my mindset,” Weaver says. “It was just, stop trying to do more than you need to -- that old saying. And when I stopped thinking and just showed up and accepted what I was doing, I was kind of blindsided by the change.”

Beginning the season as essentially Martin’s fourth starter, Weaver quickly blossomed into the team’s Friday night ace. He made 15 starts, going 7-2 with a 2.29 ERA. Across a team-high 98 1/3 innings pitched, he struck out 119 batters (11th most in the nation) and walked just 19. After the season ended, he starred for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team, then went 8-4 with a 2.62 ERA as a junior in 2014.

The Seminoles’ closer those last two seasons also happened to be one of the biggest stars in all of college sports. During the fall, Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was breaking records by becoming, at that point, the youngest player ever to win the Heisman Trophy. In spring, though, Winston was the fun-loving, uber-talented outfielder/pitcher bopping in from the bullpen to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme to protect ninth-inning leads.

“There was always some type of humorous moment that was coming out of him, whether he was expecting it or not,” Weaver says. “I think we see that even now in his interviews, but it was a real thrill to see what was going to happen next. … Nothing’s really changed, it seems. Big personality, funny, cares a lot.”

Simplifying his approach at Florida State led to Weaver becoming a first-round pick of the Cardinals in 2014. He also saw firsthand how a closer could lift a team beyond getting three outs. Both experiences would prove beneficial a decade later.

***

In the Champagne-soaked visitors’ clubhouse at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, Weaver lifted his protective goggles and leaned into the microphone held in front of him by YES Network reporter Meredith Marakovits. A little over a month had passed since that first save in Chicago, and in 12 appearances, he had yet to allow an earned run, striking out 29 of the 55 batters he had faced. Pitching in the postseason for the first time in his Major League career, Weaver saved all three victories over the Royals in the 2024 ALDS, and Marakovits wanted to know how he was doing it.

“I don’t know, it’s just like, the ferocious jungle cat comes out in me, and you just feed into the energy,” he said.

In short order, Weaver’s dominant performances and memorable quips had made him a media darling and fan favorite. The World Series was now one step away, but the route just to get within sight of the mountaintop had been an arduous climb.

His five years in the Cardinals organization had gone great. He became close with fellow 2014 first-round pick Jack Flaherty and soaked up all the knowledge he could from franchise cornerstone Adam Wainwright.

“He has to be my most impactful teammate/mentor that I had in the game coming up,” Weaver says of the 200-game winner. “He took me under his wing, always made it a point to get me out to dinner if they were going, or to talk to me in the dugout, or just goof around and have fun. … And that led to some really cool things, like a couple mission trips in Haiti and just keeping up over the course of time. He’s been a really big part of my baseball career.”

A “shocking” four-player trade in December 2018 that brought Paul Goldschmidt to St. Louis sent Weaver to Arizona, marking the beginning of a challenging five-year stretch. Injuries were the main culprit as he eventually lost his spot in the Diamondbacks’ rotation. He was just starting to regain confidence in 2022 when he got traded again to Kansas City, which placed him on waivers after the season. Seattle claimed him, then dropped him. He signed with Cincinnati and spent the bulk of 2023 in the Reds’ rotation, but with his ERA hovering around 7.00, Weaver was still searching. He’d pitch well for five or six innings, then see it all unravel.

“I felt like I was as close as I ever was to regaining what I felt I could do on a baseball field, but there was just a lot of working through moments mechanically, a lot of mindset stuff,” he says. “It was hard because you felt like you’re so close to getting that cookie out of the jar, and then the next thing you know, the stepstool flips, you fall back down to the bottom and you’ve got to retry again. And it just becomes pretty exhausting.”

After 21 starts, the Reds cut bait on Weaver, releasing him in August 2023. The Mariners scooped him back up, but after he allowed nine runs in five appearances, they designated him for assignment. With three weeks left in a disappointing season, the fourth-place Yankees claimed him. Weaver’s pride had taken a hit, “But I was like, You know what? Don’t complain about this. You should be thrilled that someone still believes in you and thinks you could do something,” he told himself. He made three September starts for the Yankees, including a 7-1 win at Yankee Stadium over his former team, Arizona, in which Judge homered three times.

A free agent after the season, Weaver re-upped with the Yankees on a one-year deal with a club option for 2025. He was given no assurances about what his role would be; everything was on the table. As he had done after his first year at Florida State, he realized there was an opportunity to be seized -- he just needed to make a few slight mechanical and mental adjustments.

“I thought a lot back to my freshman to sophomore year, where I had to accept the mindset of, stop trying to do more than you need to, just accept the role you have, be the best you can at it and then just let the baseball play for itself,” he says. “Then I just kind of went out, and the rest is history.”

***

Any noise, any negativity, any worries about the way things were going -- Weaver blocked them all out, just as he had all season long. The bullpen door swung open, a remix of Gary Wright’s 1976 soft rock hit “Dream Weaver” blared out of the Yankee Stadium speakers, and Weaver came in to finish the ninth inning of the first World Series game in the Bronx since 2009.

He was feeling 100% healthy and more confident than he had been in a decade. Not even a game-tying, two-out, two-run, pinch-hit homer by Cleveland’s Jhonkensy Noel in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the ALCS could rattle him (though he’s still a bit miffed about giving up a double to the previous batter, Lane Thomas, after being ahead, 0-2). In his next appearance, he pitched a scoreless ninth and 10th to earn a Game 5 victory that clinched the 41st pennant in franchise history.

As an antsy crowd prayed for a miraculous comeback -- down 2-games-to-none in the Series, the Yankees trailed the Dodgers, 4-0, after eight in Game 3 -- Weaver took a moment to soak it all in. Here was a guy who just wanted to experience playoff baseball for the first time, and now the dream wouldn’t end.

“As you get older and wiser, we tend to be able to focus and slow things down a little bit better,” says the married father of two. “My whole goal was, 'Man, just enjoy this.' This is like borrowed time, in a sense. You’re getting more than you asked for. Win or lose -- I hope I win -- at the end of the day, I’m just going to be appreciative of this journey, this ride, from where I’ve been to where I am now. That just gave me a lot of confidence and peace.”

Throughout the World Series, Weaver stuck to his routine, pitching free and easy, entertaining the masses with his postgame interviews, and he availed himself well: Although he was tagged with two blown saves, he gave up just one hit in four appearances and wasn’t charged with a single run. He has shown that he has what it takes to succeed in the most pressure-filled situations imaginable, and “I would think that would lead to some confidence -- rightfully so,” says Boone. “He was dynamite really all year, but especially what he was doing late in the year, in the biggest moments. He’s a really good pitcher, really good athlete. We talk all the time about different players; it doesn’t necessarily happen exactly how you think it’s going to happen, or they don’t ascend how you necessarily think. Everyone’s journey is a little bit different. He’s gone through a lot of failing, a lot of succeeding, and everything in between. He obviously settled into an awesome role last year.”

This year will present new challenges, and new opportunities. With the Yankees having traded for All-Star closer Devin Williams last December, Weaver has seamlessly slid back into a setup role to start the season. He knows as well as anyone, though, that the future is unpredictable. Whatever comes his way, he will be better prepared -- in body and mind -- than ever before.

“Pitching in the postseason, especially the World Series, allows that calmness, when the adrenaline’s going, to just say, ‘Hey, you’ve been on the biggest stage that you could possibly be on. You should be good right now,’” Weaver says. “You’ve given yourself the opportunity to see this moment more clearly, and to be able to slow the game down in ways that you’ve never been able to before. That’s something I’m excited about, being able to manage the game in those ways.”

Nathan Maciborski is the executive editor of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the April 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.