Ryan Weathers' Blue Jays start must be giving Brian Cashman nightmare flashbacks

Entering a pressure-packed year, as Aaron Judge's age rises and the Dodgers and a 2027 lockout booth loom, the thing Brian Cashman can least afford to do is bet on the wrong stuff once again. Any acquisition he makes that features a pitcher whose sum of his parts lags behind his on-paper prowess is going to be scrutinized. If he's going to insist that the bulk of his work was already finished at the 2025 trade deadline, and that last year's team is worth running back, the scant new additions are going to stick out like sore thumbs.

That means both Cade Winquest, chosen in the Rule 5 Draft, and Ryan Weathers, acquired in exchange for four prospects in January, are going to be under the microscope. Cashman's decisions to bequeath an Opening Day roster spot to the unproven Winquest and make Weathers his only premium rotation addition this winter are going to loom large, especially in the context that he proudly did nothing else. If you're betting on both men being not only viable, but exceptional, it would be nice if the fruits of Matt Blake's labor were immediately obvious. We'd like to think a plan was in place that could quickly differentiate, say, 2025 Weathers (all the stuff in the world, very few results, very little availability) from the 2026 version.

And yet here we are. Weathers and Winquest, whose grip on a roster spot is now tenuous, both toed the rubber against the Blue Jays in Dunedin on Thursday.

Weathers allowed seven runs in three scattered innings. Once again, he was subbed out in the third, returned, and got scorched in the third. He threw 74 pitches, the vast majority coming in the third and fourth as the wheels fell off twice.

Reasons to be concerned about Ryan Weathers, despite elite spring training stuff

Spring ERAs don't really matter (Weathers' is 11.68), but swing-and-miss being unable to overpower hittability and poor location certainly does. Shrugging off dinks and dunks and disallowing them from spiraling into big innings is a skill; Weathers allowed two soft hits with two outs and no one on, and it resulted in an immediate mess in the third. A ground ball single to first base started his attempted recovery in the fourth as well; quickly, the bases were loaded, and George Springer was doing what he does against this team, poking a grand slam into the Floridian wind.

His first spring start against the Nationals was incredible. The other three have been harsh misses. That's what happens when a pitcher with plenty of documented roller coaster rides joins a new fan base unfamiliar with his shenanigans. They get to experience a tired story anew.

Winquest, who either breaks camp with the Yankees or finds himself returned to St. Louis, went back to square one as well after some recent progress. He followed Weathers and Kervin Castro by allowing a home run to light-hitting Andres Giménez, followed by a double to Springer and a single to Daulton Varsho. Neither man instilled any confidence in Cashman's grand plan.

For now, it seems Weathers is still a project instead of a Cy Young dark horse lurking in the Yankees' No. 5 spot, and Winquest is still the third-best option in the Yankees' competition for a single bullpen spot (and yet he'll earn it by rule of law).

The Yankees have built up enough rotation depth that, at some point, both Weathers and the chronically hittable Luis Gil could end up either in the bullpen or the minors. But that time is not now. Both are needed. And both look perilously like their outdated models.

Every time Cashman chooses to bet on upside instead of acquiring normalcy, he's going to be judged more harshly because of his own haughtiness. If he thinks he has the geniuses in the building to figure out Weathers and Winquest, rendering a more premium name unnecessary, then otherwise forgettable outings in the dog days of spring will be heavily scrutinized. It's unclear for whom Thursday was a bigger nightmare: Cashman, or the fans who were just starting to get a bit too optimistic about the same flawed process.