The last time someone from the Weathers family was traded to the New York Yankees, it was July 31, 1996.
Florida Marlins righty David Weathers was in the bullpen at Dodger Stadium in the middle of a game against Los Angeles. When the phone rang, he looked at the clock. It was 8:58 p.m. PT — just two minutes before the trade deadline, which back then was midnight Eastern Time. Stunned by the news, Weathers raced to the visiting clubhouse, where his teammates on the 49-58 Marlins — 16 1/2 games back in the standings — congratulated him.
The next morning, he was on a flight to New York City, where he’d soon become an unsung playoff hero, helping the Yankees upset the Atlanta Braves in the World Series, kicking off their 1990s dynasty.
This time, nearly 30 years later, Weathers was in the high school gym of his hometown, Loretto, Tenn., when a friend tapped him on the shoulder and said he’d just heard that his son, Ryan Weathers, a 26-year-old lefty for the Miami Marlins, had been traded to the Yankees, in a deal that seemed to come out of nowhere.
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.
“It’s like a full-circle moment,” David Weathers said in a phone interview with The Athletic on Wednesday morning.
“It’s a challenge being in New York, but it’s also one of the greatest places you could ever play baseball.”
David Weathers with a 7-year-old Ryan at Reds spring training in 2007. (Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press)
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’ Opening Day rotation as they await the returns of Carlos Rodón and Gerrit Cole from the injured list.
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’ Freddy Peralta and the Washington Nationals’ MacKenzie Gore.
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.
So, what should Yankees fans know about Ryan Weathers?
His father described him as “an old-school kid” who was “raised by a dinosaur in the game.”
“They’re going to get a blue-collar guy,” said David Weathers, who pitched 19 years in the majors. “He’s a lunchbox guy, man. He’s going to show up.”
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 shutting him down. He also suffered a left lat strain later in the season, and made just eight total starts, recording a 3.99 ERA.
But Weathers’ fastball had nearly touched 100 mph, and his slider and changeup each registered as above average via FanGraphs’ Stuff+ metric. It was enough for Marlins manager Clayton McCullough to pick Weathers as his “breakout” candidate for 2026 in December. And it was enough for the Yankees to bet on Weathers, who has had a healthy offseason and recently has been throwing off a mound, his father said.
“He’s a lunchbox guy, man. He’s going to show up,” David Weathers said of his son, Ryan. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
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.
“I see all those things,’ David Weathers said, “and I think, ‘This could be a really good situation for Ryan to grow as a pitcher.’”
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’ dropped him immediately into the rotation, where he struggled with a 14.81 ERA in four starts.
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.
The Yankees celebrate after winning the 1996 World Series. (Timothy Clary / AFP via Getty Images)
Weathers called the 1996 group “special.”
“As much as I stunk when I first got over there … those guys were encouraging me,” he said, “though I know in the back of their minds, they were like, ‘Good Lord, dude, get it together.’”
But Weathers’ fondest memory from the playoff run wasn’t from the World Series. It was in a win during Game 2 of the American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers.
He entered the game with two on and no outs in the fourth inning, desperate to keep the Yankees’ deficit at 4-3. Weathers was to face the fearsome Juan González, that year’s eventual AL MVP. Torre told him to feed González 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.
“We’re not throwing him a first-pitch fastball,” Martinez said.
Weathers instead began with a slider, getting a swinging strike before fanning González and eventually escaping the jam unscathed.
“We had superstars everywhere,” Weathers said, “but they were even better guys.”
Weathers said he can’t wait to return to the Bronx. He wants to watch his son wear pinstripes and make his own memories, too.
“His best years are ahead of him,” the father said.
