MLB draft prospect Aidan Weaver pitches with a competitive fire

Recent Central Bucks East graduate Aidan Weaver is a 6-foot-5, 220-pound right-hander who throws hard and competes harder.

He displays a fastball that has been known to reach the mid-90s, coupled with a killer changeup and an increasingly effective slider.

Yes, but have you ever seen him rebound?

For all the success that Weaver has had on the mound, and it has been considerable enough to draw scores of major league scouts at his games this year, Weaver showed his competitive fire during the winter as a member of the C.B. East basketball team.

The reaction to him playing basketball before a senior season when he would no doubt be a candidate for the Major League Baseball draft, while earning a baseball scholarship to Duke, was seen as a dangerous gamble.

What if he got hurt?

There was a lot on the line, especially for someone who by his own account spent the winter meeting with virtually all MLB teams.

Weaver understood the consequences of playing, but he went against conventional wisdom and took to the court.

And he wasn’t going about it in a halfhearted way.

“He played so hard, almost to the point it made me nervous,” C.B. East basketball coach Erik Henrysen said. “Here is a guy with MLB interest and he was diving on the floor for loose balls.”

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That’s because even though baseball is his bread and butter, Weaver couldn’t compete in basketball with less than 100% effort.

“He provided a ton of leadership the way he battled every day,” Henrysen said. “He is an awesome two-sport athlete who never missed a workout.”

As a postscript, Weaver was selected first-team all-Suburban One Continental Conference in basketball as C.B. East finished second in the conference. He averaged a workmanlike 7 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 assists per game.

While going all-out in basketball, imagine how he treated his main sport.

“He enjoys competing and has high expectations of himself,” C.B. East coach Kyle Dennis said. “He’s not going to just be the eighth man on the basketball court, and in baseball he is going to everything he can to help the team.”

Maybe the most impressive part of his senior baseball season was how Weaver handled the hoopla surrounding him.

In his second-to-last pitching outing this year, a night game against rival Central Bucks West, there were double-figure scouts in attendance.

That, according to observers, was a regular occurrence this spring for Weaver, but all he focused on was the catcher’s mitt instead of the array of radar guns behind home plate.

“I got used to it and it wasn’t that distracting,” he said. “In big tournaments, there would be golf carts lined up with scouts.”

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Weaver attracted plenty of scouts, not just in high school but last summer at tournaments in California, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.

“I think he just went about his business, and he would do the same thing if 20 scouts were there or nobody was there,” Dennis said. “He knew people were there to watch him but just did his job.”

Weaver feels he is in a great position. He will either be drafted and possibly sign with a Major League Baseball team or play for Duke in the highly competitive Atlantic Coast Conference.

Derek Kraemer, his head coach with the AAU travel team the Crossbridge Raiders, has heard from several scouts and says the feedback is all over the board.

Some organizations rank him higher than others, very common when discussing high school pitchers. This year’s draft is Sunday through Tuesday.

“One thing that MLB scouts like is he doesn’t have a lot of mileage on his arm,” Kraemer said. “He missed out on a COVID year and a lot of high school games were canceled the last two years.”

Weaver certainly wasn’t overused this spring. As a senior, he pitched just six games, making five starts for East, which did not qualify for the postseason. Weaver was 1-2 with a 1.25 ERA. He recorded 44 strikeouts and eight walks in 28 innings. Opposing batters hit .179 against him.

Kraemer says Weaver does a great job of matching brains with brawn. “What makes him a really good pitcher is that he is really smart intellectually, he is a super-high IQ kid,” Kraemer said. “His natural strength is phenomenal and he is effortless with how he throws.”

That strength is one of the things that attracted Weaver to Duke and head coach Chris Pollard.

“The frame is really impressive and I like the fact that he has a really nice arm action, the arm really works,” Pollard said in a phone interview.

Pollard, who was hired at Duke in June 2012, also loves Weaver’s bulldog mentality, the type that causes him to dive for loose balls in basketball.

“The makeup is the starting point with Aidan — I love his toughness and competitive fire on the mound,” Pollard said. “I was up to see him pitch earlier this year and I really like the way he attacks hitters. He has presence, poise, and toughness on the mound and elite physical tools to go along with that.”

Weaver has been at Duke since late June, attending class and beginning summer workouts with the Blue Devils.

Throughout the spring and now into the summer, he has not been overwhelmed with the attention. Taking from his basketball background, handling all the attention has been a layup for Weaver.

“It has been fun and I don’t feel any pressure,” Weaver said. “I am excited about the opportunities.”