So they now have a #2-Weaver, #3-Wilson, and 4 #5's-Hanson, Vargas, Richards, and Blanton.

Not impressed.

Weaver is a bona fide #1 man. We're still gonna whip their butt, but Weaver is the real deal.

Weaver's a borderline #1, and Wilson is also a #2. Hanson could still be something good, but nobody knows yet. I think you might be undervaluing Vargas and Richards by putting them at #5. Blanton still strikes me as a gas can, but he might do better pitching in Anaheim a lot instead of Philly. Time will tell.

i agree with mi amigo. weaver is a 1 in any rotation other than the tigers, giants, seattle, or phillies.

what ever happened to jeremey weaver?

jeff^

@Jim: huh? Did you forget about Yu? I'd take Yu over Weaver any day. Weaver is excellent but he ain't getting any better. Yu, though, probably hasn't reached his ceiling.

Okay, I'll indulge you a little more. Yes, if you watch Weaver in Anaheim, he's almost always great. It's almost like he and the ballpark were made for each other. But he's more inconsistent away, especially in hitters' parks like ours. He's kinda like an ace at home, a #2 (possibly #3) away.

Yu, on the other hand, pitched roughly the same home and away. Don't get me wrong, even in our bandbox I'd take Weaver, but I wouldn't give up Yu for him.

If you have to say players may be a #1 or #2, etc...then they aren't that. Like Andy said, Weaver isn't all he's cracked up to be when he's not pitching at home. CJ may have lost it the second half of the year, he's a borderline #2...most of the time #3 now. Other than Hanson, who has to prove he's anything but a #5, Vargas, Blanton and Richards are borderline #4 and most of the time #5 type pitchers. They fill a role, but don't provide much upside besides the clock being right twice a day and pitching a gem once a month. If you take those guys away from that pitchers park, they're #5's. Plain and simple. The Mariner's had it right to trade Vargas before he had to face the shorter fences in Seattle. We would be bitching and moaning if those last 4 guys were battling for our #3-5 spots. Be real.

"We would be bitching and moaning if those last 4 guys were battling for our #3-5 spots."

Oh, all-encompassingly. But they aren't. We have one rotation spot potentially up for grabs, and I'd rather give Perez the shot than go with any of those 4. I'd still rather have a guy like Jackson instead. For now, at least.

Exactly my thoughts Andy.

Weaver is definately a #1. Without question.

Yu might have more up side but weaver has already proven to be the real deal. As of today weaver is a number 1.

"Dick of the Day" goes to Jim. Coincidentally, it too is only worth 2 cents.

I bet if you polled the otheer 28 teams on whether or not they'd have Darvish or Weaver, it would be like 25 Darvish, 3 Weaver

Jim is correct... Weaver is better than anyone in our rotation.
I'm sorry to break the news to you fellas but Darvish is not ready to be "the guy". Could he be in 2014 or 2015, absolutely... but he isn't right now and while I really need to get over this already, Greinke would have been PERFECT front-lining this rotation. Darvish would then slide into the #2 spot and be one of the best #2's in the game. Harrison would've been one of the bettter #3's and Holland and Ogando would have ranked right there with the best bottom of the rotations in baseball. But instead, all of those guys get bumped UP and suddenly those matchups aren't as favorable.
I know I'm stating the obvious here... but this team desperately needs a legit, shutdown #1.

Weaver is not a true "ace". Top of the rotation pitcher, sure. But ace? No.

Everyone values different things when evaluating players. It's all perception. But to me, and maybe it's just because I'm highly selective, I see aces as pitchers who don't rely on their home ballpark for results. Weaver's success is contingent on pitching in Anaheim. Guys like Yu Darvish, Justin Verlander, David Price, Clayton Kershaw ... they could pitch anywhere and dominate.

@Jim: instead of belittling me, you could tell me why you would rather have Weaver than Yu.

@brad: I like my job, thankyouverymuch.

I decided to just do a side-by-side comparison of Weaver to Darvish in 2012. Results are (as expected) mixed

Record
Weaver: 20-5
Darvish: 16-9

IP
Weaver: 188.2
Darvish: 191.1

Innings per start
Weaver: 6.289 (little under 6 and a third)
Darvish: 6.597 (little under 6 and two thirds)

K/9
Weaver: 6.77
Darvish: 10.4

BB/9
Weaver: 2.15
Darvish: 4.19

K/BB
Weaver: 3.60
Darvish: 2.81

HR/9
Weaver: 0.94
Darvish: 0.66

opponents BA
Weaver: .213
Darivsh: .218

oponents OPS
Weaver: .605
Darvish: .659

WHIP
Weaver: 1.02
Darvish: 1.28

ERA
Weaver: 2.81
Darvish: 3.90

xFIP
Weaver: 4.18
Darvish: 3.52

fWAR
Weaver: 3.0
Darvish: 5.1

bWAR
Weaver: 3.7
Darvish: 4.0

So they split these 14 categories evenly (if I counted right) as far as who has the advantage over the other. But the other stat is (of course) Weaver is 30 and Darvish is 26. Plus you have to account (when it comes to ERA, home runs/9, OPS, BA, and WHIP) that Weaver plays about half his games in a pitchers park while Darvish played half his in a hitters park. I think when you throw in age and where they play, Darvish was clearly the better pitcher in 2012, in a year where he was adjusting to pitching in an entirely different league, and closed the season spectacularly (last 5 starts he had K/BB of 5.57, opposing BA of .160, opposing OPS of .433!) which leads a lot of us to believe he's only getting better. I feel when you add up all the stats, you'd clearly, right now, take Darvish over Weaver.

That said, I'd love Weaver on my team anyday. ESPECIALLY at the contract he signed (15 mill a year for his production is a clear sign he's a team first player). I'd just rather have Darvish who is younger, had a slightly better season according to WAR, and has room to grow.

Plus I am addicted to watching Darvish breaking balls. Those are sick.

Jim and Brad, refer to the previous post from Cmdr. Splice. To everything else you said....ha! And if you read these blogs, you would know me and Eric have differed on quite a few things...soooo I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm pretty courteous on here, except for the joke here and there. (ie. above said comment)

brad = Jim B. = Carlos = Jim = troll

Weaver's road ERA (which includes TBIA), 3.21. Darvish's road ERA 3.92. For his career Weaver sports a 3.80 ERA.and a 128 ERA+. Verlander's road ERA for his career is 3.79, and he sports an identical 128 ERA+ . ERA+ is park adjusted, so you can't write Weaver off as benefiting from his home park. I love Darvish and think he will be better but he could just as easily go Dice-K on us and lose it. Weaver when it's all said and done is a proven guy who has led the AL in Ks, has been the runner up for Cy Young twice, has pitched a no hitter, he's shown himself capable of dominating.

Weaver has always outperformed his FIP and the sort, he's like Ichiro and BaBip in that his partcular style accounts for why he performs the way he does. He's gone on record as focusing less and less on Ks and pitching more to his defense -- in Anaheim, with Trout, PB, and now Hammy behind him he could very well be better this year.

The GM in Anaheim is a saber guy, he seems to be banking pretty heaving on his pitchers all pitching to their peripherals and the defense backing them up. Blanton, Hanson, Vargas, are all FB pitchers. If all those guys do is put up road ERA's of 4.50 that should be enough for them so long as that offense continues where it was last year.

Bill James projections has their staff putting up the following ERAs

Weaver, 3.07
Wilson, 3.35
Hanson, 3.66
Vargas, 3.82
Blanton, 4.10

If that staff comes close to that they will be very tough. Its possible the impact of that defense is being underrated. The A's road a great pitchers park and strong OF defense to first place. Their home/away ERA difference was almost a full run. I think the Angels are positioning themselves for something similar.

We can beat them, but I think some here are guilty of trying to paint them as being worse off than they are.

"I see aces as pitchers who don't rely on their home ballpark for results. Weaver's success is contingent on pitching in Anaheim. Guys like Yu Darvish, Justin Verlander, David Price, Clayton Kershaw ... they could pitch anywhere and dominate." eric

Hmm..

Clayton career ERA home and away: 2.36 / 3.30
Darvish career ERA home and away: 3.88 / 3.92
Verlander career ERA home and away: 3.00 / 3.79
Price career ERA home and away: 2.60 / 3.72 TB offers the same strong defense and pitchers park as Anaheim.
Weaver career ERA home and away 2.66 / 3.80

Basically Jered Weaver is identical to David Price. Now what?

@Pitch- If you compare two players, use only one metric, then claim them identical I feel you are oversimplifying. I don't have the time right now but I'm confident that if you used more metrics we'd see Price is superior to Weaver. That said, I had not seen the home and away splits on ERA for Price and am a little surprised they are that far apart given that Price strikes out batters at a higher rate than Weaver and high-strikeout pitchers tend to have more even home/away splits.

weaver is a 1, darvish doesnt have the years under his belt to be considered a 1 or maybe even a 2.

Of course I was oversimplifying, but it completely dismissed the notion that these other pitchers can pitch anywhere whereas Weaver cannot. There was nothing remotely scientific in Eric saying "I think this and so it's true. "

ERA is a terrible tool to use for predicting future performance, but it's a great measure of whats happened. For his career, Weavers actual performance as it related to runs allowed is on par with these allegedly superior pitches.

I find it sort of funny that people are quick to write off Weaver as a Angel Stadium creation who is reliant on his defense but then tout Price as a significantly better pitcher -- he's not. Price like Weaver benefits from his home park. Price like Weaver benefits from an elite defense behind him. And have you looked at their rates? Weaver's career H/9 is 7.9 to Price's 7.6. Weaver's HR/9 is 1.0 to Price's 0.8. Weaver's BB/9 is 2.4 to Price's 3.0. The K/9 figures are 7.6 to Price's 8.3. When you consider Weaver has nearly twice as many pitches and has a better career WHIP and K:W rate he's being underrated by people here.. Oh, and despite being so vastly superior, Price has a career ERA of 5.98 Vs the Rangers and it's over 10.00 AT Texas. Hes been torn apart while still managing to keep a K rate over 8.0. Compare those numbers to Weaver's Vs Texas and in Arlington and it's not even close.

Weaver is an ace, people saying he's not are being homers.