Jered Weaver signs one-year deal with San Diego Padres

 As spring training gets rolling, the San Diego Padres have finally signed Jered Weaver.

Dating back to just before Christmas, the San Diego Padres had been rumored to have interest in free agent starter Jered Weaver. Coming off a down year with the Los Angeles Angels (12-12, 5.06 ERA, 5.2 K/9 over 178 innings), no other teams were known to be interested in Weaver as his career trends the wrong way.

The Padres even reportedly made an offer to Weaver back in January, and it has become clear they’re essentially competing against themselves.

Spring training is now getting going, and Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reported on Saturday the Padres have signed Weaver to a one-year, $3 million deal.

After posting a 68-94 record last season, the Padres have remodeled their starting rotation with a bunch of veteran re-treads this offseason. Clayton Richard, Trevor Cahill and Jhoulys Chacin have been signed to matching one-year, $1.75 million deals. Weaver is getting a bit more on his one-year deal, so perhaps that means he is being viewed as a proverbial staff ace by the Padres.

Weaver has spent his first 11 major league seasons with the Angels, with a 150-93 record and a 3.55 ERA over 322 starts. He won at least 18 games three times in four seasons from 2011-14, with 20-win campaign in 2012. But the former first-round pick has not been the same pitcher over the last couple seasons, with a reduction in fastball velocity helping to drop his K/9 rate to 5.1 (2015) and 5.2 (2016) with the expected rise in his ERA.

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Moving to the National League should help Weaver have some measure of success with the Padres this year, but anything close to career revival can’t be expected. San Diego is probably headed for the cellar of the National League West again in 2017, but at least they’re in line do it with some fairly recognizable names in the starting rotation.