Yanks Acquire Devin Williams – Your New Opinion:

The Yankees recently acquired reliever Devin Williams in exchange for Nestor Cortes, and infield prospect Caleb Durbin.

Here’s the thing: Relief pitchers are not as important as you think they are.

This is an important point on which we need to agree before proceeding with this conversation, so let’s repeat:

Relief pitchers are not as important as you think they are.

We assign more importance to relief pitchers under the false notion that runs scored early in the game aren’t as important as runs scored late in the game. Trust me, when Carlos Rodon melts down in the third inning, those runs count just as much as when Luke Weaver allows them in the eighth or ninth inning. We just don’t think that’s the case because when a reliever implodes it’s soul crushing.

Don’t misunderstand: Teams need a bullpen as a whole to pitch well if the team is to succeed – but individual relief pitchers are the most replaceable players on the roster and there’s not a close second.

To wit;

Devin Williams, who the Yankees just acquired, is a damn good relief pitcher. But…

In his best season, he was worth 2.2 fWAR. In 2024, Cleveland’s Cade Smith led all MLB relievers in fWAR with 2.7, while Mason Miller and Emmanuel Clase – both of whom were talked about all season for their must-see TV dominance – posted 2.3 and 2.2 fWAR respectively.

Conversely, Nestor Cortes, by almost all accounts an average starting pitcher, posted 3.1 fWAR in 2024.

Relievers just don’t log enough innings to move the needle that much over 162 games. Also to be clear, most relievers don’t throw more innings because they aren’t good enough to – they would be exposed if batters got to see them more than once per game. Pitchers who start games are starters by and large because they’re better pitchers than relievers.

Which is what makes the trade confusing to me. Even if you feel that Nestor is trending in the wrong direction, and is no longer an average starter, that’s a fair position to take. Yet that begs the question, why include Caleb Durbin – who was smashing baseballs in Triple A and plays a position of need – in the trade with Cortes?

Pure speculation of course, but my guess is that the Yankees believe that in 2025 Williams will be more valuable in 2025 than Cortes will, and they aren’t as high on Durbin as we were led to believe. As I said on social media at the time, the trade will likely just turn out to be a wash.

Regardless, the Yanks have Devin Williams now, and he’s a bad dude. Although we can’t dismiss the walks – 11.2% career walk rate is going to stress out Yankee fans more than they realize – his upsides are massive.

Williams’ pitches are just flat out impossible to square up. He keeps the ball in the park (0.57 HR per 9 innings over his career), he’s elite at avoiding hard contact (he posted the third lowest average exit velocity among 315 pitchers with at least 20 IP in 2024) and misses bats like bugs bunny: Over five seasons, 41% of MLB hitters who’ve faced Williams have walked back to the dugout after striking out.

Devin Williams is a nice addition, I just don’t think it moves the needle toward a championship as much as most fans and media seem to think.

Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments, or yell at me on the “My Baseball Page” on Facebook and Blue Sky.

Recommended reading: “The Game” by Jon Pessah. One of my all-time favorite baseball books. It’s mostly about Bud Selig and his (mis) handling of the game, but George Steinbrenner and his GMs, Bob Watson then Brian Cashman, are discussed often. It may enlighten some of you who are curious as to how Cashman has kept his job.

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