Did the Brewers Trade Devin Williams at the Perfect Time?

One of the Brewers’ few moves of the offseason was to trade Devin Williams to the Yankees, in exchange for starting pitcher Nestor Cortes, infield prospect Caleb Durbin, and a few simoleons. In many ways, the deal was unsurprising. Williams had just one year of team control remaining and was set to make a solid amount in arbitration (given his consistently outstanding numbers). Milwaukee had already been preparing Trevor Megill to step up into the closer role, which he filled while Williams had spent much of 2024 sidelined with injury. However, was the organization incentivized to get rid of him for performance-based reasons, as well?

The start of this 2025 season hasn’t been very kind to Williams. Not only was he forced to shave his beard just days before the team did away with their oppressive facial hair policy (although, at least, he seems to have been the impetus for that change, and now he has the beard back), but he has looked uncharacteristically shaky as the Yankees’ closer. Over his four appearances, he’s already at a 12.00 ERA with a 3.00 WHIP and 1.25 K/BB. Meanwhile, Luke Weaver has yet to give up an earned run over his four appearances and looks ready to return to the role he held for the team at the end of last year.

So what’s going on with Williams? First, let’s point out the obvious: his walk rate is out of control. One of his main weaknesses has always been allowing free passes, as his career walk rate of 12.0% illustrates. I guess that’s what happens when your most frequently-used pitch is a changeup. However, this year, it's even worse than usual. Of the 18 batters he has faced so far, he has already walked four.

A closer look at pitch location data does suggest a lack of consistent command, especially when compared to his most recent work in 2024. Williams is at his best when he keeps the four-seam fastball high in the zone and the changeup clustered around the bottom of the zone. While some relievers with a sinker/slider arsenal like to attack opposing hitters laterally, Williams’ arsenal attacks them vertically. We can see the areas in which he tends to place these two pitches by looking at his pitch heat maps from last year.

This setup gave him a cumulative 40% whiff rate and 5.4% barrel rate. Additionally, each pitch had different outcome patterns. The four-seam fastball had an opposing average of .111 but had an opposing slugging percentage of .250, while the changeup had a higher opposing average of .162 with a lower opposing slugging of .216. Batters had a hard time consistently putting the fastball into play, but when they did, they had a better chance of doing damage than they did against the changeup.

With the Yankees, the location for these two pitches seems to be objectively worse.

First and foremost, his fastball is all over the place. It’s either outside of the strike zone or dangerously in the middle, the two worst-case scenarios. Some relievers may be able to get away with this, but with an average velocity of just 94 mph, it’s hard for it to be a competitive pitch if not located well.

Unless you're 2024 Tommy Kahnle, a changeup-first arsenal doesn’t really work well if your fastball isn’t effective, since the main upside of an off-speed pitch is trying to get batters out in front as a result of a sudden drop in velocity. In some cases, he uses the changeup so much that hitters are just sitting on it. Sure, they might be behind the fastball, but it will usually be enough to foul it off and stay alive.

A good example of this is a recent outing against Pittsburgh that saw him concede a game-altering hit. On April 6th, Williams faced off against Tommy Pham in the bottom of the 11th inning of a tied game. In this crucial at-bat, Williams threw just two fastballs, both of which were in the heart of the strike zone. After several changeups that had been fouled away, Pham walked it off on the ninth pitch (and seventh changeup) he had seen.

Intrinsically, Williams's stuff is as good as ever. The velocity and movement are consistent with his career norms, but his command and overall rhythm have been bad enough to turn heads. The Brewers have had plenty of pitching problems on their own, but when it comes to the closer situation, Trevor Megill has preserved his precious 0.00 ERA.

Williams has time to turn things around with the Yankees, but his opportunities to finish games may now be fewer and farther between. Unfortunately, he has already given up more earned runs than he did in all of 2024, so getting his ERA to where it used to be in Milwaukee may be tricky. Whether the Brewers were actually aware of some part of his game being off before shipping him off to the Big Apple will probably remain a secret, but what’s clear is that the bender seems to have run out of air.