Brewers Attempt Latest Competitive Balancing Act by Trading Devin Williams

Hours after he completed a trade that sent Devin Williams to the New York Yankees for left-handed starter Nestor Cortes, infielder Caleb Durbin, and cash, the theme of Matt Arnold’s summary of the deal was balance.

Balance is at the heart of the Brewers’ competitive vision. Playing in baseball’s smallest market, the club has made clear its approach to winning the franchise’s first World Series championship: build perennial playoff contenders instead of defined and limited windows that could require full-scale rebuilds after they close.

That approach demands a constant balance between the short and long term. It means the Brewers must decide whether to keep star players for the final seasons of expiring contracts, after which they will not retain their services, or trade them for long-term assets.

In some cases, it makes the most sense to trade the player, as the Brewers did with Corbin Burnes. Other times, the proper balance entails keeping them, as they did with Willy Adames.

In Williams’s case, a trade was the proper decision and inevitable outcome. Even the best closers are one-inning relievers who typically have short shelf lives at baseball’s most volatile position. Among valuable contributors, they’re the most replaceable. That’s especially true for a Brewers club that produces new breakout relievers every season.

This balancing act took a different shape than those before it, mainly because half of the return is also on an expiring contract. Cortes is projected to earn the same $7.7 million arbitration salary as Williams in his final year before free agency, but the Yankees sent $2 million to cover roughly a quarter of it.

Arnold felt it was the right move to both support the 2025 Brewers and add a long-term contributor.

“It’s a balance with both of the players involved,” he said. “I think the first is trying to help the team today, and we think we definitely do that with bringing somebody in with the pedigree of Nestor Cortes. Having been the opening day starter for the Yankees just a year ago, he brings a real stability to our rotation.”

Cortes became the odd man out in a stacked Yankees rotation but profiles as arguably Milwaukee’s second-best starting pitcher. His peripherals since 2021 and in 2024 rival Freddy Peralta’s and put him ahead of other rotation options like Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale, DL Hall, and possibly what could be a diminished version of Brandon Woodruff after his return from shoulder surgery.

He’s a perfect fit for Chris Hook and company. Standing 5-foot-11 with unremarkable velocity, Cortes is not the flashiest pitcher. He mixes six pitches from a myriad of arm angles to keep hitters off-balance.

Cortes relies heavily on his four-seamer and cutter but threw just 40 sinkers in 174 ⅓ innings. The Brewers will likely make the sinker a mainstay in his arsenal, adding the arm-side run he lacks in how he attacks hitters.

Unlike Myers, Civale, and trade deadline acquisition Frankie Montas, Cortes does not need fixing. He’s already a reliable mid-rotation starter. The Brewers insist he is fully healthy after a late-season elbow scare, positioning him to be one of the most valuable members of the 2025 rotation.

Durbin is the long-term piece in the deal and the player who could most impact how it ages. The Yankees were set to name him their starting second baseman before the deal, but he’s best suited for a utility role. His place on the roster has yet to be determined, but he figures to see plenty of big-league at-bats throughout 2025.

Excellent plate discipline, productive baserunning, and versatility are his calling cards. In 375 plate appearances at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2024, Durbin walked (12.5%) more than he struck out (9.9%) and stole 29 bases. While primarily a second baseman, he also logged time at third base and shortstop with cameos in the outfield.

At 5-foot-6, he’s one of the shortest players in professional baseball. His short levers give him excellent bat-to-ball skills, but there should be serious concerns about whether he will hit for any power against big-league pitching.

Durbin’s average exit velocity in Triple-A was just 83.8 mph, and his barrel rate was just 3.3%. Beneath his .375 wOBA was a less-impressive .315 xwOBA. Durbin missed two months midseason with a broken wrist, an injury that often saps hitters of their raw power. Still, his 84.2 mph average exit velocity and 1.3% barrel rate in two months before the injury were similarly poor.

At first glance, those are strikingly similar red flags to those of Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, two players whose lack of power has seriously limited their ceilings. In parts of two big-league seasons, Frelick has hit for an 88 wRC+ and Turang for a 76 wRC+.

Whereas Frelick and Turang always employed a balanced approach that featured plenty of hits to the opposite field, Durbin is a heavy pull hitter. He pulled 56.4% of his contact in Triple-A while hitting most of those batted balls at ideal launch angles. That has allowed him to achieve greater power numbers than one would expect. He hit 10 home runs in the regular season and five more in 117 plate appearances in the Arizona Fall League.

“You’ve seen him start to graduate and gravitate into a little bit more power as his career has progressed in a really good way,” Arnold said. “We saw that continuing to progress, especially in the fall league this year, while continuing to face higher-quality pitching.”

Durbin pulled all 10 of his regular-season home runs and hit seven down the left-field line. Pulling line drives down the line also helped him hit 23 doubles.

It worked well in the minor leagues but might not carry over to the big leagues. Durbin will face better pitching while playing in bigger ballparks where the ball does not carry as well. The fact that half of his home runs left the bat at less than 100 mph is alarming. Isaac Paredes led right-handed hitters with nine such home runs in 2024. No one else exceeded six, and every name in that tier of the leaderboard hits the ball much harder than Durbin.

Durbin has a high floor, and his profile meshes well with the Brewers’ current offensive identity and scrappy mentally under Pat Murphy.

“I called Murph earlier to talk to him about it, and he was pumped,” Arnold said. “He got to see a lot of him in the fall league, being located in Arizona, and he’s been watching him out there and said he loved the way this guy plays.

Pat Murphy’s leadership, that’s exactly what he’s looking for, those kind of grinder-type players and guys that get the most out of their ability.”

While the fit is clear from that standpoint, it also makes Durbin feel redundant. In Frelick and Turang, the Brewers already start two scrappy hitters with minimal power every day against right-handed pitchers. It raises the question of how many of them they can roster. It’s fair to wonder if the Brewers can better flank their existing core with more explosive athletes with greater power potential.

Some of those questions could be resolved by further offseason moves. For now, Durbin and Cortes are a fair return for one year of Williams. It was not an earth-shattering package, but relievers with one year of control rarely command that kind of coup during the offseason.

The immediate takeaway is that this deal has minimal risk of turning out poorly for the Brewers. They still have a loaded bullpen, their rotation is in better shape than it was before Friday, and they added a capable MLB position player. If Durbin hits for even modest power, it could prove another successful balancing act by Milwaukee’s front office.