Giants’ Weber can only wait for what’s next
It's August, and former Menomonee Falls standout Ty Weber lives at home, working out four to five times a week with a local trainer, attending summer classes so he can graduate later this month and working a part-time job with a family friend.
He's also a member of a Major League Baseball organization, the San Francisco Giants.
It's a weird limbo for Weber, a pitcher whose electric start to his senior season at the University of Illinois was derailed by the COVID-19 shutdown, although he may be one of the rare athletes whose cause was by the chain of events.
“There's still a lot of unanswered questions regarding what I'll be doing in the fall or when I have to report,” Weber said. “I signed a contract, but my life is kind of normal. I feel like a baseball player in a sense, but at the same time, I'm not doing baseball things except working out and throwing.”
The Giants — the lone organization reaching out to Weber after a truncated MLB draft in June — keep in touch. A team trainer checks in on Mondays to chat, one of the organization's pitching coordinators put Weber on a throwing program and a strength trainer has sent over some workouts. When his career does begin, Weber knows he'll be assigned to the rookielevel club in Scottsdale, Arizona, but with fall instructional camp unlikely, it seems he won't be asked to report anywhere until spring training 2021 in February.
“It is nice to know that right now, I have a time where I can really develop some of the things I can work on and really work on certain parts of my body.”
Could the shutdown have actually helped Weber?
Weber wouldn't disclose how much he signed for, but teams were limited to just $20,000 signing bonuses for undrafted players in the dramatically altered 2020 draft format.
But Weber said it was a blessing in disguise, because the amount was “significantly more” than what he expected to get if he had been an unsigned free agent in a normal year, given that he would have been entering the draft as a college senior without leverage.
The NCAA elected to give spring seniors an additional year of eligibility, so Weber could have elected to return to Illinois, a course of action he initially expected to take.
“I would say as soon as I got home, it was hard not to think about going right back to school because it was so fresh,” Weber said. “The draft was three months away. With the draft going down to five rounds, I knew I was not going to get drafted.
“The Giants had expressed interest a week prior (to the draft); they were the only team that called. It's been a dream of mine; there's not a better opportunity right now, and you never know where we're going to be next year.”
Of course, despite his senior stats, there's a chance Weber could have been taken in a regular draft. The pitcher who was the centerpiece of Menomonee Falls' two state titles in 2015 and 2016 took a leap forward as a junior at Illinois when he went 4-3 with a 3.28 ERA.
But as a senior, he was even more impressive. Under instruction from a new pitching coach at Illinois, he'd gone 3-1 with a 1.31 ERA before the shutdown. His magnum opus came against Texas A&M, when he allowed no runs on three hits in 62⁄3 innings as Illinois staged a 1-0 win Feb. 26.
The A&M pitcher that day was Asa Lacy, who went fourth overall in the draft to the Kansas City Royals. It was a performance that likely amplified Weber's presence on the radar.
“There were probably 40 or 50 scouts in the stands,” Weber said. “It was one of my three starts. If it was a normal year, I was hoping my success would have continued and maybe I could have gotten drafted after the whole year.”
His relationship to baseball now
Like many baseball fans, Weber admitted enthusiasm over the return of baseball.
“Just being able to watch professionals on TV, it's pretty exciting,” he said. “I'm always asked the question, ‘What would you wear if the Brewers and Giants play?' That's a tough one because they haven't played yet; I'm still a Brewers fan at heart. When I officially throw on the Giants gear, that'll probably change a little bit.”
But for now here he is, back home with his family, including father Dave — who was drafted by the NFL's Los Angeles Raiders in 1988. He's also surrounded by memorabilia from his high school days.
Weber earned the win in the 2015 state semifinal and pitched a completegame shutout, with both RBI, in a 2-0 win over Marquette for the 2016 crown.
“I've still got a lot of pictures (from the Falls titles), a couple of books our moms made, both of the rings, on my dresser in my room,” he said. “It's still prevalent. My buddies and I always talk about those days still.”