The Yankees gave preferential treatment to Devin Williams in his first and probably only season with them, but they didn’t get relief pitching like the Brewers received for six years.
NEW YORK — The sound of knives sawing off cardboard boxes muffled the soft-spoken words of Yankees players during interviews.
While the Blue Jays partied in the visitors’ clubhouse after closing out a best-of-five AL Division Series in four games last Thursday night, some Yankees players started to clear out their lockers and pack up for the offseason.
Sitting at his stall in front of an empty box, reliever Devin Williams stared into space in what became a routine for him after games.
Only this time, Williams was likely reflecting on his rollercoaster season. As a free agent who is unlikely to return, Williams was spending his last time in the Yankees clubhouse.
GET INSIDE SCOOP ON YANKEES:SIGN UP FOR BOB KLAPISCH’S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
The Yankees or Williams won’t say that, but both know his odds of a 2026-and-beyond reunion are about the same as Mariano Rivera coming out of retirement to close games next season at age 56.
After a December 2024 deal, the fit between Williams and New York never materialized. It was broken from the start — and his performance never recovered either. Here’s how it all fell apart in New York for one of the game’s best relievers.
###
After Aaron Judge and most other Yankees headed home, the first day of the Yankees’ offseason included one last interview. Williams seemed more relaxed and honest than he’d been all season with reporters in his presence.
The mysterious and quiet Williams was asked what it was like for him being a Yankee.
“At first it was a challenge, but I’ve grown to love being here,” he said. “I love the city. I loved taking the train to the field every day. Yeah, I really enjoyed my experience here.”
Williams looked and sounded believable even though he often appeared miserable in the clubhouse before and after games in his first season with the Yankees.
After six sensational years with the Milwaukee Brewers, Williams was booed at Yankee Stadium on Opening Day and during the Yankees’ season-ending loss. In between were more bad outings than all of his other seasons combined and a lot of dominance.
His 4.79 ERA was a 161.75% increase from his 1.83 ERA with Milwaukee. He lost his closer job twice, the second time for good after the Yankees traded for David Bednar.
Besides that, it took Williams most of the season to embrace being a Yankee. He showed up to spring training mad that he had to shave off his beard, he was uncomfortable over the number of media in the clubhouse, and he wasn’t used to being booed.
Williams had been accustomed to playing in Milwaukee, where Brewers fans treated struggling players very differently from New York.
“I played in the smallest market in the league to the biggest market in the league,” Williams said. “I drove to the field every day. It took me 10 minutes to get there in Milwaukee. There’s just a lot of life stuff (in New York). It’s an adjustment. Having never played here, I got here a day before the season started and then had to figure out my routine on the fly.”
###
Williams resisted change on his first official day with the Yankees, Feb. 12, spring training report day for pitchers and catchers in Tampa.
Williams showed up with a beard, probably a first in Yankees camp in 50 years.
During media availability, NJ Advance Media approached Williams that day while he was standing at his locker for a first in-person greeting.
Williams brought up the Yankees’ policy of not allowing facial hair. He said he would shave before the next day’s first spring workout because it was a team rule.
Williams also griped a little about how the clubhouse was full of media, a regular occurrence for the Yankees for the first few days of spring training and much different than Milwaukee, which doesn’t have the same size media contingent.
Behind the scenes, Williams let the Yankees know that he was unhappy about their appearance policy, which was added by late owner George Steinbrenner in 1976.
Williams has had a beard since he debuted as a big leaguer with the Brewers in 2019. He was known as much for that as he was his infamous pitch, the Airbender changeup.
While Williams was not alone in his dissatisfaction with the policy — ex-Yankees players Don Mattingly and Clint Frazier fought it, too — this was different.
This was a new star player who joined the Yankees a year from free agency. This policy, Williams let teammates and club officials know, could affect whether he’d seriously entertain re-signing with the Yankees.
General manager Brian Cashman and Judge, the Yankees captain, sought opinions from other veteran players. Many were in favor of being allowed to grow a beard while respecting the Yankees’ tradition of players having a military look for almost a half-century.
Judge and Cashman ended up having talks with owner Hal Steinbrenner, who met with Williams and others.
Nine days into spring training, Steinbrenner announced on Feb. 21 that he was relaxing the policy: Well-groomed beards would be allowed.
Williams started growing out his beard that day. Other Yankees did as well, including starting pitcher Carlos Rodon, reliever Mark Leiter Jr., and rookie catcher J.C. Escarra.
But Williams’ comfort did not translate into amazing results on the field.
With his former club in the Bronx for Opening Day, Williams ran in from the bullpen with Key Glock’s “From Nothing” playing and Yankees fans cheering. The Yankees led 4-1.
It didn’t go well. A groundball single, double off the wall and walk loaded the bases with nobody out. The go-ahead run was coming to the plate.
Yankees fans booed, and then they booed again when Williams fell behind the next hitter 3-1.
A sacrifice fly and two strikeouts preserved the Yankees’ season-opening victory, but this was a very shaky, 36-pitch save that would be an omen of things to come.
###
By April 25, manager Aaron Boone demoted Williams from the closer’s role. He had an 0-2 record, one blown save and an 11.25 ERA in 10 games.
Luke Weaver, excellent in the role in 2024, was promoted from setup reliever again and was just as good in racking up saves in May. He might have kept the role all season if he hadn’t gone on the injured list June 3 with a hamstring strain.
When Weaver returned on June 20, Williams was back closing and pitching much better, one run allowed over 7.1 innings in his last eight outings.
Weaver didn’t go back to closing because he had success pitching more than one inning at a clip, and he also embraced entering games in the middle of an inning, a condition Williams was not in favor of.
“At the end of the day, it’s (Boone’s) decision,” Williams said in June. “I feel like the bullpen works better when the guys are going one inning. It definitely keeps guys healthier, I think. They used me for two innings multiple times in a week (in Milwaukee in 2020), and I ended up hurt. And then I didn’t do it anymore.”
The Yankees catered to Williams’ preference throughout the regular season, sticking to three-out saves until he went through another slump.
When he blew a save on July 30, his ERA over his last six outings ballooned to 7.50.
The next day was July 31, trade-deadline day in the majors. Cashman had five deals that day, including two to acquire closers, Bednar from the Pirates and Camilo Doval from the Giants.
Bednar, who had been an NL All-Star in 2022 and 2023, became the Yankees’ closer with Williams and Doval as setup relievers.
With Doval struggling, Williams mostly excelled for the remainder of the season,
“He’s responded to adversity well,” Boone said. “At the start of the season he did and got through that and was really consistent for a couple months. He had a couple weeks there where he struggled again and he responded.”
Williams responded, but his reliability in the playoffs was a pressing question.
In three postseason games over 2 1/3 innings for Milwaukee the year before, he allowed six runs, including an epic choke.
Last October in Milwaukee, the Brewers were three outs away from ousting the Mets in the Wild Card Series. With a 2-0 lead in the ninth inning of Game 3, the Mets torched Williams for four runs, the first three coming on a homer by Pete Alonso, and they advanced to a Division Series.
This year, Williams’ postseason started out with scoreless innings against the Red Sox in Games 1 and 3 of a Wild Card Series. And then last Wednesday night, he had his best moment as a Yankee the night with their season on the line, rallying from a 6-1 deficit to beat the Blue Jays 9-6.
After Judge hit a game-tying homer off the left-field foul pole in the fourth and Jazz Chisholm belted a go-ahead homer in the fifth, Williams came on to pitch a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Then, for the first time all season, Boone had Williams pitch into a second inning.
Williams received a standing ovation as he left the mound after getting the first out.
“It’s nice to feel appreciated sometimes,” he said after the game. “It was definitely better than what I heard for much of the year.”
It didn’t last.
The next night, Williams’ rollercoaster ride of a season took one more big dip. Playing another do-or-die game, the Yankees were trailing the Blue Jays 2-1 in the seventh inning when Williams replaced rookie starter Cam Schlittler with two outs and runners on the corners.
A stolen base gave the Blue Jays two runners in scoring position, but Williams struck out George Springer for a huge second out.
An out away from getting out of the jam, Williams went away from his signature changeup to attack Nathan Lukes, a left-handed hitter, with high fastballs. The first was neck high for a ball. The second was above the letters, but Lukes was sitting fastball and lined a hit to right. Two runs scored.
Yankees fans booed Williams after the hit and again when he left the field after the inning.
Not long after, the Blue Jays won the game 5-2 to wrap up the series.
In the end, Williams had the same emotions as his manager and teammates. He thought the Yankees were good enough to be a World Series team.
His big takeaway, however, included some positivity.
“It’s obviously disappointing we didn’t reach our ultimate goal, but I would say that this was still a special year,” Williams said. “We tied for the most wins in the league. A lot of good stories from this year.”
###
Unlike Yankees fans, Williams doesn’t think he had a poor season.
“I think overall it was pretty good, to be honest,” he said. “At the end of the day, I think it was along the lines of what I’ve done in the past, outside of a few blowup games. But I feel like I contributed.”
His final stats are disappointing. His career-worst 4.79 ERA was the third highest among 64 pitchers who appeared in at least 65 games this season.
Also …
-- His 34.7 strikeout rate was a low since his rookie season and a drop from 43.2% in 2024, opponents’ exit.
-- Opponents’ exit velocity was a career-high 89.5 mph, up from 84.2 mph in 2024.
-- His 37.3 whiff percentage on changeups was down from 48.8 last year and a low since 2019, his rookie year.
-- Opposing hitters had a .194 average on changeups, up from .137 in 2024, .153 in 2023, .166 in 2022, 161 in 2021 and .032 in 2020.
“At the end of the day, there were more good ones than bad ones,” Williams said. “Overall, it was solid.”
There were more good ones than bad ones. That’s true. In 55 of his outings, he allowed seven runs in 54 1/3 innings.
But in his other 12 outings, he allowed 26 runs over 7 1/3 innings.
Fair or unfair, Williams is judged differently from other relievers because of his track record. A two-time NL reliever of the year, he wasn’t close to the same guy in 2025. That’s why he lost his closer job twice, and that’s part of the reason why the Yankees will likely move on from Williams this winter, even if he said he’s “definitely open” to re-signing, while adding “it takes two parties for that.”
Stories by Randy Miller
Read the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Category: General Sports
