Crystal Ball: Luke Weaver, RHP, St. Louis Cardinals

Here's a Crystal Ball, by reader request, for St. Louis Cardinals pitching prospect Luke Weaver..

The Crystal Ball is NOT a PREDICTION in the sense of me saying "this is how the guy will definitely turn out." The idea is to generate discussion about a player by presenting one possible outcome for his career, based on what we currently know about him.

I try to make them logical, based on the outcomes of players who were similar at the same stage of their career. Sometimes a CB represents a maximal outcome, sometimes it is more of a middle ground. You can pick out the imagined injuries, trades, and free agent signings.

This particular CB is far from a maximal outcome; please don't take it as an indicator that I don't like Weaver. I like Weaver a lot and expect him to be considerably better than this, but it is useful to game out different scenarios in our minds. In this example, concerns about Weaver's long-term durability that some scouts have prove to be accurate in the sense that he goes through a three-year rough patch before rebounding somewhat in his early 30s.

Thinking about the non-maximal outcomes helps keeps grounded as analysts.

.