Late Innings

From this evening’s news wire:

Right-hander Jeff Weaver agreed to a minor league deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday after taking last season off.

Weaver, who played for the Dodgers in 2004-2005, is 93-114 with a 4.72 ERA in nine seasons. He has played in four postseasons, winning the clinching Game 5 of the 2006 World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals.

I’m watching the Obama press conference and am hearing words mentioned like “economic stimulus” and “worst economic times since the Great Depression.” For Weaver, things were pretty good for him, as well as the economy. In 2006, he went 8-14 with a 5.76 ERA. However he tuned himself up in the postseason for the Cardinals, had a big World Series and then left for greener pastures as a free agent. The team that scooped him up was the Mariners (with Bill Bavasi obviously) for 8.325MM (the same salary he made in 2006.) Weaver paid off dividends immediately for his new employer, going 7-13, 6.20.

He had a hard time finding work back in 2008, mainly due to ridiculous contract demands and for the most part sat out the year (he did apparently pitch in the lower levels of the Brewers’ organization.) We’ll see if he can get himself into gear for 2009 for the Dodgers. That 5.0 WAR that Derek Lowe had can’t be replaced by any free agent starter on the market currently…