A minute later, Ryan called his father to tell him all about it, and the memories came flooding back for David, now 56. There were emotions, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a full-circle moment,\u201d David Weathers said in a phone interview with The Athletic on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge being in New York, but it\u2019s also one of the greatest places you could ever play baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/AP070309023821.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n David Weathers with a 7-year-old Ryan at Reds spring training in 2007. (Gene J. Puskar \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Late Tuesday, the Yankees pulled off the surprise trade, acquiring the hard-throwing Ryan Weathers for four lower-level prospects. He figures to be in the mix for the Yankees\u2019 Opening Day rotation as they await the returns of Carlos Rod\u00f3n and Gerrit Cole from the injured list.<\/p>\n
The move caught many off guard. The Yankees, in their search for rotation upgrades, had been connected to bigger names such as the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 Freddy Peralta and the Washington Nationals\u2019 MacKenzie Gore.<\/p>\n
It was also a surprise considering relatively few Yankees fans had even heard of Ryan Weathers, let alone had known that his dad in 1996 allowed just one run over seven postseason appearances for the Bombers, who were on their way to the first of four World Series rings in five years.<\/p>\n
So, what should Yankees fans know about Ryan Weathers?<\/p>\n
His father described him as \u201can old-school kid\u201d who was \u201craised by a dinosaur in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to get a blue-collar guy,\u201d said David Weathers, who pitched 19 years in the majors. \u201cHe\u2019s a lunchbox guy, man. He\u2019s going to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan Weathers looked to be coming into his own in 2024, when he had a 3.55 ERA in 13 starts for the Marlins before a left index finger strain in June sidelined him for more than three months. In 2025, he had a strong spring training before sustaining a left forearm strain that led to Miami\u00a0shutting him down. He also suffered a left lat strain later in the season, and made just eight total starts, recording a 3.99 ERA.<\/p>\n
But Weathers\u2019 fastball had nearly touched 100 mph, and his slider and changeup each registered as above average via FanGraphs\u2019 Stuff+ metric. It was enough for Marlins manager Clayton McCullough to pick Weathers as his \u201cbreakout\u201d candidate for 2026 in December. And it was enough for the Yankees to bet on Weathers, who has had a healthy offseason and recently been throwing off a mound, his father said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2236031710-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe\u2019s a lunchbox guy, man. He\u2019s going to show up,\u201d David Weathers said of his son, Ryan. (Matthew Stockman \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
David Weathers said he was excited for his son to learn from the likes of Cole and Max Fried, and to play under manager Aaron Boone and bench coach Brad Ausmus, whom David played with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see all those things,\u2019 David Weathers said, \u201cand I think, \u2018This could be a really good situation for Ryan to grow as a pitcher.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In some ways, it is similar to 1996, when the Yankees were intrigued enough to hope that David Weathers could fill a hole left in their rotation by David Cone, who was treated for an aneurysm in his right shoulder that May. The problem: Weathers had spent the two weeks before the trade pitching in short relief, and the Yankees\u2019 dropped him immediately into the rotation, where he struggled with a 14.81 ERA in four starts.<\/p>\n
They soon demoted him, but he pitched well at Triple-A Columbus and in a late-season call-up, so manager Joe Torre, on the last day of the regular season, called him into his office and told him he was on the postseason roster.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-51587595.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n The Yankees celebrate after winning the 1996 World Series. (Timothy Clary \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Weathers called the 1996 group \u201cspecial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as I stunk when I first got over there \u2026 those guys were encouraging me,\u201d he said, \u201cthough I know in the back of their minds, they were like, \u2018Good Lord, dude, get it together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But Weathers\u2019 fondest memory from the playoff run wasn\u2019t from the World Series. It was in a win during Game 2 of the American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
He entered the game with two on and no outs in the fourth inning, desperate to keep the Yankees\u2019 deficit at 4-3. Weathers was to face the fearsome Juan Gonz\u00e1lez, that year\u2019s eventual AL MVP. Torre told him to feed Gonz\u00e1lez sinkers for a double-play grounder. But when Torre walked off the mound, first baseman Tino Martinez looked at Weathers and told him to disobey his manager.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not throwing him a first-pitch fastball,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Weathers instead began with a slider, getting a swinging strike before fanning Gonz\u00e1lez and eventually escaping the jam unscathed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had superstars everywhere,\u201d Weathers said, \u201cbut they were even better guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weathers said he can\u2019t wait to return to the Bronx. He wants to watch his son wear pinstripes and make his own memories, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis best years are ahead of him,\u201d the father said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time someone from the Weathers family was traded to the New York Yankees, it was July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,369,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-407628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-new-york-yankees","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}