The Yankees recently signed righty Ryan Weber and southpaw Manny Bañuelos to minor league contracts, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. Both pitchers were minor league free agents, allowing them to sign non-roster deals during the ongoing transactions freeze.
Weber has pitched in the big leagues in each of the past seven years. The sinkerballer has worked in a swing capacity, starting 16 of his 63 appearances and tallying 167 cumulative innings. While he’s only punched out 14.9% of batters faced at the MLB level, Weber has demonstrated excellent control (5.4% walk rate) and racked up grounders on over half the balls in play against him.
The 31-year-old only made four MLB appearances last season, although they came with three different teams. He made one outing each with the Red Sox and Brewers and pitched in a pair of games for the Mariners. Weber spent the bulk of the year with those teams’ respective Triple-A affiliates, combining for 103 1/3 frames of 4.18 ERA ball with a minuscule 3.1% walk percentage in generally hitter-friendly settings.
While Weber has the more recent MLB run of the Yankees’ two new pitching additions, Bañuelos is probably the more familiar name to much of the fanbase. Added by the Yanks as an amateur out of Mexico during the 2008-09 signing period, Bañuelos fairly quickly developed into one of the sport’s top pitching prospects. Baseball America ranked the southpaw among the game’s top 50 overall farmhands entering both the 2011 and 2012 campaigns.
Unfortunately, Bañuelos’ progress was beset by injuries as he hit the high minors. He missed the entire 2013 season recovering from Tommy John surgery and wasn’t as effective upon returning. New York traded him to the Braves in advance of the 2015 season. Bañuelos debuted with seven appearances for Atlanta that year, then didn’t pitch in the majors again until 2019 with the White Sox.
Those two seasons mark his only big league experience to date. Across 77 innings, Bañuelos owns a 6.31 ERA with subpar strikeout and walk rates (17.7% and 12.6%, respectively). He’s spent the past two seasons pitching professionally in foreign leagues, appearing in Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League and in the Mexican League. He’ll return to affiliated ball with his original organization in an attempt to get back to the majors for the first time in three years.
The return of Manny.
I’m very happy Weber has signed with the Yankees organization, and wish him a very long career in pinstripes.
Weber has elicited a very strong reaction from Sox fans!
Strong but classy, in a Stepford Wives kinda way.
Banuelos joins Ender Inciarte as the top players on the Replacement Team the Yankees will apparently field during spring training. MLB clubs are promoting and selling tix to exhibition games, they are not going to cancel. The big question is what happens come March 31st — bring the scabs north and have them post as legitimate teams (as we saw in the NFL during the ’87 strike) or Manfred and his circle hit the pause button as negotiations resume.
“Yankees will apparently field during spring training.”
Except these are the guys that the Yankees are planning on for their opening day roster. It’s just how they operate.
If Manny makes the team or is option 1 from the minor leagues to be called up, the Yankees are in worse shape than I thought. They can’t count on Banuelos for anything this season. I guess he could finally break out after 10+ years in the minors, on the IL and across the pond but it is a long shot at best. Weber has a better chance of making MLB appearances than Banuelos does in my opinion.
Inciarte was a great minor league signing. He could easily make the opening day roster and probably should, unless one of their youngsters has a monster Spring.
In a normal year, and with a CBA in place, Enciarte is a good 4th/5th outfielder; a logical successor to Gardner.
But in 2022? The next Shane Spencer or Kevin Millar… or maybe not.
No mention of how well Banuelos pitched in the foreign leagues. I wouldn’t assume he is going to suck. Obviously the Yankees saw something. Not sure why you are higher on Inciarte. He was a pretty bad hitter when he was a good hitter. Now he is a very bad hitter. It was his defense that made it ok but yhat has steadily deteriorated. Kind of a 6th emergency outfielder at this point.
If he makes the team I’d be pleasantly surprised because it would mean he really showed something. He’s probably going to be AAA depth.
One thing: he was pitching in Taiwan so the quality of hitters is closer towards AA quality. Banuelos should have tried to sign with either a KBO or NPB team instead.
@Dorothy, likely the opposite. Weber is the guy to throw AAA bullpen innings. There’s nothing particularly intriguing about him from a pitch selection point of view. Not including the MLB guys in the pen, the Yankees have 7 or 8 bullpen arms sitting ahead of him.
Banuelos is harder to say since he’s been gone from the majors the last couple seasons. Perhaps they simply view him as a filler arm, or maybe they see something’s changed. Reports have him throwing more sliders from a lower arm slot. Matt Blake, the Yankees pitching coach, is good at adding horizontal movement to sliders. Courtesy of the excellent Mike Axisa, out of the top five MLB pitchers who added the most horizontal movement to their sliders, three of them were Yankees, including the guy at the top:
1) Mike King: +7.2 inches
4) Nestor Cortes: +5.2 inches
5) Jonathan Loaisiga: +5.1 inches
They bring in interesting arms every year, both before the season and during. Last year it was Lucas Luetge, who hadn’t pitched in the majors in six years, but it was clear from the start they saw something in him. This year, decent chance it’s Jimmy Cordero who gives them some outs from the pen. I doubt they see anything in Weber. They might in Banuelos as a bullpen option over the long season. Hopefully it is a long season.
ManBan is back! Another one of hyped pitching prospects that the Yanks couldn’t develop and refused to trade when the value was at its highest.
No the guy just never rebounded after TJ surgery but don’t let facts get in the way of your story. Banuelos was going to be up with the big league team before the injury. They only traded him once he became a lost cause
He was traded for Chasen Shreve who was traded for Luke Voit. In the end, not a bad return. And we’ll see what Voit gets if he’s traded.
Gallegos was also in that deal and has been great for the Cards.
He has. It’s a deal that’s worked out for both teams.
True but I wasn’t getting too deep into it. The Yankees also got international money they used to sign Dominguez.
Alright, I’m going to need a calculator, a slide rule and an abacus to figure this out now, Joe. 🙂
59 different players wore a Yankees uniform last season. Besides the 26 from the original roster they used 33 extra players during the season. Would this be why all of the teams are signing free agent AAA players? Triple A teams are generally a mix of players like the ones being signed, career minor leaguers hoping for a call, and a few players on their last stage of development. This is the player pool for injured player replacement, not replacement players to play games at the major league level.
Yes. Of course. This is business as usual for teams, who are building out farm depth to help over the long season. Last year, the Yankees stashed Greg Allen in AAA. He left, so this year it’s Inciarte. They’re not building for replacements, they’re building for the season…which will happen.
He’s actually a first-stringer. Anyone who thinks Hicks is going to make it through the season without injury…
That’s why you keep him in AAA until needed. Judge and Gallo can handle random games in CF while the bus from Scranton arrives.
Frankly, if they’re replacing Gardner as the potential 4th OFer with Inciarte, then they’ve failed. Inciarte has a negative WAR over the last three seasons.
Reality is Inciarte could have an opt out if he doesn’t make the team. He’s a placeholder. He’s there in case other efforts fail. They won’t.
Inciarte’s value comes from his glove and base running. He is still an excellent defensive CF and has won 3 gold gloves out in CF. He’ll be a great defensive replacement and fill in starter. There’s also something about being a Yankee that seems to unlock offensive output, especially in a player’s first season. If Inciarte can back to hitting in the .240 – .250 range, he’ll be a great addition to the team. It’s a low risk contract with a potentially good ceiling. He does more for the team than Gardner does at his advanced age.
I would love to see him be the Gardner Ender.
So you prefer the replace one player with a worse player?
Yes, as the Yanks might actually replace Ender if he flops. They would keep Gardner all season no matter how poorly he plays.
It has to End.
Former Braves great Manny Bañuelos comes full circle.
Did you know that HIV/AIDS can be transmitted through 5G?
The Killer B’s–
Manny Banuelos, Dellin Betances and Andrew Brackman
In baseball, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad.
Both former teamates of the 2015 Braves
Thank God Ryan Weber is not back with Boston. Have at him, NY!
The hype (wipe?) machine has switched teams yet again.
Was Cashman blinded by the “significant” spin rates Weber supposedly throws up, all to go with his blazing 89-90mph FB??
You need a sinker baller to clean up walks from [insert any Yankee starter not named Cole]
I never wanna see Weber in a Redsox uni ever again! I wish him well, he’s gonna need it.
Giants got much better arms.
Well they got their batting practice pitcher locked down in Weber.
I’m surprised Weber didn’t end up with Cardinals. They like that profile and his arsenal makes him look like a clone of Seth Maness
Why?
I guess it’s not a bad time to be a scrub. Teams are stockpiling minor league contracts these days during the great lockout of 2021-2022.
Whyhay- No, these signings happen EVERY year! They usually get overlooked as there is usually plenty of other news.
In the fall of 2020 when unemployment skyrocketed because of the pandemic, MLB was listing the usual October/November releases and mlb trader rumors fan’s were complaining about the evil owners when end of year releases happen EVERY YEAR.
I know they happen every year but they seem more fast and furious than in the past. Teams are using so many more players now than ever before. Teams can’t do anything about their major league rosters so they’re building up the junior varsity squads. I still say it’s been better for these players this year with getting (possible) jobs.
Some players are signing overseas to make sure they get a job and have a paycheck coming in. I do not think any additional players are going overseas as those leagues have a cap on how many foreigners can be signed, but it may be that they are signing sooner.
Ryan Weber is the guy that shifted how I look at stats. I feel like most fans have now learned to value many of the context neutral stats and put a lot of stock into what they might mean. But context matters. June 13, Toronto at Boston. Martin Perez managed to only get 4 outs while putting his team in the hole 5-0. Weber came on and his job was not so much to limit runs as it was to get outs, which he did. He got 17 outs while allowing 11 of the 30 batters he faced to score as the Jays ran it up on Boston. Weber was thrown to the wolves and he took it on the chin. A team still trying to win that game would have pulled him in favor of someone who had it that day. He did a job that while ugly and uncomfortable to watch (even from a Jays’ fan perspective) Boston fans should be thankful for because he allowed Boston’s bullpen to have a chance the next couple of days. So when I hear about pythagorean records I don’t assume that it’s always about true talent level. It can just mean Ryan Weber.
Weber was the guy Bloom seemed to really want to work out that just doesn’t have the stuff to be an effective Major League starter.
The ManBan is back!
Weber is ummm very hittable to say the least
Weber will make the Yanks out of spring training and go 4 IP 0 hits 0 runs 0 BB 4 K I his first outing and get the win in a comeback Yanks victory. His next 4 outings will be:
1 IP 4 hits 3 runs 0 BB 0K
0 IP 5 hits 7 runs 1 BB 0K
0.2 IP 6 hits 6 runs 2 BB 1 K
1 IP 8 hits 9 runs 1 BB 1 K