Yankees' Trade For Ryan Weathers Yields Mixed Reviews

As the old saying goes, a baseball team can never have enough pitchers.

If that was the principle animating the New York Yankees‘ trade for Ryan Weathers, their logic was sound. The same week they welcomed left-hander Carlos Rodon back to their starting rotation, the Yankees watched another left-hander, Max Fried, exit his May 13 start after 61 pitches because of soreness in his throwing elbow.

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The Yankees acquired Weathers from the Miami Marlins in January for outfielders Brendan Jones and Dillon Lewis, first baseman Dylan Jasso and shortstop Juan Matheus.

Weathers’ expected ERA of 4.22 (according to Statcast) suggests some regression is in order. But for a team that was without Rodon and former Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole to start the season while the two lefties rehabbed elbow surgeries, Weathers has been a more than acceptable stopgap.

Weathers is under team control through 2028, so the trade wasn’t designed to only help this year’s Yankees squad. Exactly what role the 26-year-old will hold once Cole returns - perhaps later this month - remains to be seen. Fried’s elbow will go a long way toward answering that question.

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The other side of the trade - the four prospects the Marlins received - has plenty to say about whether it was good or bad for the Yankees.

Lewis, 22, is slugging .487 at Double-A Pensacola after hitting two home runs on May 13. Jones, Lewis’ teammate at Pensacola, has also seen his power take a step forward in his second season at the Double-A level. He’s slugging .454, with 15 stolen bases in 18 attempts, in 32 games.

Matheus, a 23-year-old at advanced Class-A, is taking a similar step forward. He’s slugging .442 - an improvement over the .398 slugging percentage he posted at the same level last season - and is 6-for-7 in stolen base attempts.

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If there’s a dud among the four minor leaguers, it might be Jasso. He’s slashing .159/.265/.261 at Pensacola, after going 3-for-16 with three singles and four strikeouts in the Marlins’ major league spring training camp.

It’s too early to judge the trade altogether, let alone whether any of the four prospects will be impact players in Miami. For a Marlins team that has had more trouble developing hitters than pitchers recently, losing Weathers could prove to be a win in the long run.

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This story was originally published May 13, 2026 at 8:27 PM.