Devin Williams’ first month within the pinstripes may hardly have gotten off to an uglier begin, as the previous NL Rookie of the 12 months has an 11.25 ERA over his first eight innings of the season. The Yankees’ 4-2 loss to the Blue Jays on Friday noticed Williams report his first blown save of the yr, as he was charged with three earned runs after failing to retire any of the three batters he confronted within the ninth inning.
Within the aftermath of that tough outing, Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone indicated that the group could also be contemplating a change to the nearer function. When requested if the Yankees may transfer Williams to lower-leverage work, Boone informed The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner and different reporters “we’ll see,” including that “We’ll form of speak by way of that stuff. That is uncooked proper now. We need to do all the things we will to get him proper as a result of we all know how good he’s and the way worthwhile he’s going to be for us.”
The Yankees have been rained out in at the moment’s scheduled recreation with the Jays, however Boone nonetheless met with the media (together with the New York Submit’s Greg Joyce), and mentioned that he hadn’t but gotten an opportunity to talk with Williams in regards to the state of affairs. The skipper additionally framed Williams’ struggles as simply short-term, saying that Williams has “been one of many dominant closers within the league. I do know the outcomes haven’t been nice but. A variety of the stuff continues to be there, the profile of the changeup continues to be there…He hasn’t gotten swung and miss. He’s been behind within the depend slightly bit. As soon as he begins flipping that and begins getting some depend leverage, I anticipate him to return to being the dominant nearer he’s been.”
Boone isn’t mistaken in noting that eight innings shouldn’t erase the six seasons of elite work that Williams delivered with the Brewers from 2019 to 2024. Beginning as a set-up man after which as Milwaukee’s nearer as soon as Josh Hader was traded, Williams posted an eye-opening 1.83 ERA and 39.4% strikeout price in 235 2/3 innings in a Brewers uniform. An inflated 11.8% stroll price was the one query mark in an in any other case spectacular run for the right-hander, whose “Airbender” changeup turned one of many sport’s deadliest pitches.
This season, the Airbender has solely led to crooked numbers on the scoreboard, as Statcast ranks Williams’ changeup as a below-average pitch (a -1 in Run Worth in 2025 following a +15 RV in 2024). This considered one of a number of metrics which have fallen off the cliff for Williams, as his strikeout price is right down to 18.2% and he’s permitting way more onerous contact than traditional.
The dearth of manufacturing was clearly by no means what the Yankees anticipated after they acquired Williams from the Brewers in December for a commerce bundle of Nestor Cortes, Caleb Durbin, and $2M to assist cowl the $7.6M that Cortes is incomes for the 2025 season. Since Cortes is on the 60-day injured checklist attributable to a flexor pressure and Durbin has solely simply made his Main League debut, the deal has principally been a lose-lose for each groups to this point — a surprising end result for what was one of many winter’s largest trades.
The deal was meant to strengthen the again finish of New York’s pen, although Jered Weaver blossomed after turning into the nearer within the wake of Clay Holmes’ struggles final yr. Weaver has continued to look nice this season, and could be the logical alternative as the highest saves candidate if Williams was briefly faraway from the nearer function. With Williams because the evident exception, the Yankees’ aid corps has largely pitched fairly nicely in 2025, as a less-heralded commerce acquisition in Fernando Cruz has delivered the kind of shutdown work New York anticipated from Williams.
Whereas Williams nonetheless pitched nicely in 2024, his output came visiting solely 21 2/3 innings, as a stress fracture in his again stored him on the injured checklist till late July. Williams’ yr then ended on the bitter observe of an notorious blown save in Recreation 3 of the NLDS, as a 2-0 lead within the ninth inning for the Brewers turned from a possible collection victory to devastation, as Williams allowed the Mets to attain 4 runs in an eventual 4-2 win for the Amazins.
With nonetheless simply eight innings of a pattern dimension to gauge, it’s too simplistic to say that Williams continues to be dwelling on that brutal loss, or that he isn’t adjusting nicely to the change of surroundings from Milwaukee to the Bronx. The transfer to the higher-pressure atmosphere, nevertheless, does include a bigger highlight that tends to amplify any droop, and the truth that such slumps have been so uncommon for Williams in his profession have a tendency to lift questions, and invite the potential for a task change. It could possibly be that that is only a bump within the highway and Williams might be again in his previous kind quickly, although each tough outing may hamper Williams’ incomes potential in free company this coming winter.
