By the end, Devin Williams had grown comfortable — a remarkable finish from where it all started eight months prior. That level of comfort could explain why the high-leverage reliever signed a three-year, $51 million contract with the New York Mets on Monday night.
Williams arrived at the New York Yankees’ spring training complex in February sporting a full beard, a sight so unholy for the franchise that he might as well have been wearing a David Ortiz jersey.
Being inside the clubhouse with a beard, Williams immediately brought himself unwanted attention from numerous reporters in Tampa, Fla. He made several comments during his time with the Yankees about the size of the media contingent that covered the team. He went from playing for the team with the smallest media market, the Milwaukee Brewers, to the one with the largest. And he became the biggest story in camp from Day 1 because of his unhappiness with the Yankees’ facial hair policy.
When owner Hal Steinbrenner announced an amendment to the policy, fair or not, Yankees fans who were in favor of it made Williams the poster boy of the change: The Yankees didn’t relent on their policy for Don Mattingly, and yet they’re doing it for a player who just arrived and will be a free agent at the end of the season?!
Williams didn’t help his cause with those already annoyed by him, as he pitched terribly in the first month of the season, leading manager Aaron Boone to remove him from the closer’s role. He ended April with a 9.00 ERA. He finished the season with a career-worst 4.79 ERA. But he finished strongly, transforming from a pitcher who thousands would groan about when he’d trot to the mound from the bullpen to one who received a standing ovation in the postseason.
“I’ve grown to love being here,” Williams said in October. “I love the city. I love taking the train to the field every day.”
Devin Williams finished the season in the 97th percentile or better in chase rate, whiff rate and strikeout rate. (Evan Bernstein / Getty Images)
Only 11 qualified relievers had a worse ERA than Williams. But fans will need to rewire their brains when it comes to pitchers’ contracts. Gone are the days when a pitcher’s ERA is the most important indicator of their worth. The Toronto Blue Jays signed Dylan Cease to a $210 million contract after a 4.55 ERA last season with the San Diego Padres. The Baltimore Orioles signed Ryan Helsley to a $28 million contract after an epically disastrous stint, and a 7.20 ERA, with the Mets.
The reason those clubs believed in those three pitchers should give Yankees fans who are celebrating Williams’ departure some pause. Teams don’t use ERA to determine contracts; they look at underlying metrics. And the underlying metrics for Williams suggest he should be a prime bounce-back candidate in 2026.
Let’s start with Williams’ 55 percent strand rate in 2025. Strand rate measures the percentage of base runners a pitcher strands on base over a season. The average strand rate for a reliever this year was 71.8 percent. That tends to roughly be the average every season. A 60 percent strand rate is considered “awful,” using FanGraphs’ glossary. That means Williams’ strand rate in 2025 was worse than awful! His career strand rate before joining the Yankees was 81.8 percent, so this year was an outlier. If Williams can get back to his career norm, which he should as this metric is predictive, that alone would help deflate his ERA.
Even with a high ERA, Williams still finished 2025 in the 97th percentile or better in chase rate, whiff rate and strikeout rate. There’s been an arms race across the sport to identify and develop pitchers who can miss bats, and Williams has been one of the best since starting his career with the Brewers in 2019. Considering his lengthy track record of success, the Mets might be buying low on an elite reliever coming off a fluky season.
“It’s just hard to believe that the guy who was arguably the best closer in the game for the last four years wasn’t gonna figure it out at some point over the course of 162 (games),” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said in September. “The stuff was comparable, the fastball shape, the changeup shape. They’re all close enough that I felt like the results should be there, and they weren’t. So we had to keep just trying to figure out what it is.
“I just felt like, at some point, Devin Williams was gonna show up here, because he’s done it for too long to not have it surface if he’s healthy.”
Out of all relievers this year, Williams had the largest gap between his ERA and FIP, and the latter is a better statistic to measure relievers because one bad outing can cause their ERAs to rise significantly. That could explain some poor luck Williams had this season. But not everything about Williams’ season could simply be explained by poor luck with the baseball gods.
Williams’ fastball and changeup were a bit straighter in 2025 because the pitches lost some induced vertical break. It led to both grading slightly worse in Stuff+, a metric that describes the physical characteristics of an individual pitch. While Williams’ strikeout and swing-and-miss numbers were still elite, the slight changes in his pitch shapes may be the reason hitters had success against him when they made contact. With the Yankees, he allowed the highest average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate of his career. Even still, all of those numbers were not concerning for his outlook.
If the Mets re-sign Edwin Díaz, and signing Williams does not preclude them from doing so, they should have one of the best — if not the best — one-two punches in MLB. With Williams gone, the Yankees must figure out who they’ll replace him with.
General manager Brian Cashman already accounted for some of this at last season’s trade deadline. He added David Bednar, the expected closer for 2026, Camilo Doval and Jake Bird. With tweaks to help his command, Doval has the stuff to be a prime set-up man. Bird was sent to the minors after a few terrible outings with New York, but adding him wasn’t just a move for 2025. Fernando Cruz, whom the Yankees acquired last offseason, could serve as a set-up man, too, because of his high strikeout rate.
Díaz is the best reliever available, but the Yankees haven’t spent at the top of the market on a reliever since signing Aroldis Chapman for $86 million in 2016. Maybe that leads to the Yankees exploring the market for Robert Suarez, who has a high-powered fastball and closing experience with the Padres. Luke Weaver remains a free agent, and a reunion with the right-hander could make sense.
No matter what the Yankees do in the relief market, fans who are happy Williams will be riding the 7 train to Queens next season — instead of the D train to Yankee Stadium — should understand: This may not be the greatest outcome for the Bronx Bombers.
