LI's Greg Weissert in position to lock down Yankees' bullpen spot
Yankees relief pitcher Greg Weissert delivers Minnesota Twins during the first game of an MLB doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 7, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
TAMPA, Fla. -- You won’t find Greg Weissert’s most impressive highlight Wednesday in the box score from the Yankees’ 4-0 loss to the Cardinals at Steinbrenner Field.
Weissert, formerly of Bay Shore High School, said he “didn’t have the best control” during his 1 1/3-inning stint, as illustrated by his two walks and a wild pitch. But the Yankees’ reliever also had three strikeouts in his continuing audition to the make the Opening Day roster -- with Tommy Kahnle sidelined, he’s a virtual lock at this point. Gerrit Cole came away astonished by Wednesday’s performance.
“I saw two things today I’ve never seen before,” said Cole, who was relieved in the fourth inning by Weissert. “I’ve never seen a guy call the ball foul, and then fair at the same time. And then Weissert threw a fastball and the guy fell over trying to swing at it. I’ve never seen a guy fall over trying to hit a fastball. They always say you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before. So there’s two today.”
Weissert had nothing to do with third-base umpire Sam Burch first holding up his right arm and immediately switching to his left on Cardinals’ top prospect Jordan Walker’s eventual groundout in the first inning (Walker was just as confused as Cole). But the second feat of amazement was all him, as Weissert rifled a two-seam fastball (sinker) that crumpled Moises Gomez, whose hopeless hack corkscrewed him into the ground.
The combination of Weissert’s deceptive cross-body delivery and dizzying array of pitches, from four-seam fastball to sinker to changeup to slider, makes him a very difficult reliever to read. And really fun to watch for his teammates.
“He’s freaking nasty, man,” Cole said. “The action on the pitch obviously was shocking to the hitter. It took him by surprise and it was a fastball count (2-and-1).”
Weissert, 28, has graduated to the point of being far more dangerous to opposing batters now that he once was to himself -- or at least that Aug. 25 night last season in Oakland, when his major-league debut went about as terribly as it could. After waiting seven years in the minors, with one season washed-out by COVID-19, Weissert admittedly couldn’t get out of his own head -- or the seventh inning, for that matter -- walking three of the five hitters he faced and committing a balk. He was removed after recording just one out.
All this time later, Weissert chalks it up as an important learning experience, understanding the right mental space to be in to succeed at this level. He credits Cole and (now captain) Aaron Judge for helping him shake it off, and Weissert re-affirmed his place on the Yankees’ depth chart by allowing just one earned run over his final eight appearances (four Ks, six innings).
After some fine-tuning this offseason, and mechanical adjustments to help repeat his delivery on a more consistent basis, Weissert has positioned himself to again be an integral part of the bulllpen for the start of the season (despite not making the postseason roster last October).
“If you don’t get that stuff locked in, it can get a little squirrelly,” Weissert said. “I just want to be over the plate, let my stuff do what it’s going to do and see what happens from there. That’s when I think I’m at my best, when I’m getting ahead and just let things happen as they should by being over the plate.”
Listening to his teammates, that’s enough for Weissert to be effective. Judge, who faced him some last season in prepping for the playoffs, is happy to not have to deal with him in a game that counts.
“It’s no fun,” Judge said. “He’s nasty. You can talk about the slider all you want, but he’s got a great sinker, good feel for his changeup and then when you mix in that slider that’s basically starting behind me as a righty, you’re kind of, at that point, just trying to guess for a pitch, and hopefully you guess right.”
That sequencing is a lethal weapon for Weissert, who can attack any corner of the strike zone -- or lure someone out of it, as he did to Gomez in spectacular fashion. While he doesn’t possess top-end velocity, Weissert can go from a 95-mph four-seamer to an 81-mph slider, which has a very useful destabilizing effect.
The key for Weissert this spring is to make sure that he stays steady himself on the mound, and that Oakland disaster remains ancient history, which seems to be something both he and his teammates can joke about now.
“It was better to have all the bad stuff happen at once,” Weissert said, smiling. “Of course there’s going to be ups and downs, but the first one was much easier to deal with when it was all self-inflicted.”
Cole said: “It was so bad I didn’t feel bad for him. I just wanted to make sure we laughed about it as quick as possible. I told him it’s fine, man, there’s only one way to go from here.”
Weissert seems to be firmly on that route now, and with the wicked movement on his pitches, you never know what you might see when his name is called.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
