Trade Grades: Yankees acquire Devin Williams from Brewers

Trade Grades: Yankees acquire Devin Williams from Brewers

In case you may have missed it, the New York Yankees acquired closer Devin Williams from the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday! Let’s dive into some trade grades, shall we?

Yankees acquire RHP Devin Williams

Grade: A

Even though he still had a successful season, Williams was injured for the majority of 2024 with a back injury. That’s always risky, but he still pitched to a 1.25 ERA and 2.06 FIP with 38 strikeouts (to 11 walks) across 21.2 frames. It didn’t help that he surrendered four runs in 0.2 innings in the series-clinching Game 3 of the Wild Card round against the New York Mets.

We knew that the Brewers would possibly trade Devin Williams this offseason because they’re not a large market. Top-end relievers can make north of $100 million on the open market–Milwaukee was never going to fork over those greenbacks for him.

Regardless, what Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees did was buy low–strengthening the back end of their bullpen that already had Luke Weaver plus Jonathan Loaisiga. If we see the Weaver that we saw in October, this has the potential to be one of the best back-ends in baseball.

Since the start of 2022, Williams has led all relievers in ERA (1.66) while ranking in the top-5 in strikeout rate (39.5 K%), FIP (2.29) and xFIP (2.55). He’s graded in the 97th percentile or better in expected batting average, expected slugging, strikeout rate and whiff rate in each of his last four seasons, according to Baseball Savant. That’s elite.

After losing Juan Soto, New York is bolstering their biggest strength: Pitching and, more specifically, run prevention. Cortes became expendable after signing Max Fried and they still have the flexibility to make other moves.

This is great business. Now it’s time to improve a middling lineup with a Juan Soto-sized hole in it.

Brewers acquire LHP Nestor Cortes Jr., INF Caleb Durbin

Grade: C+

This isn’t the first time that the Brewers have parted ways with a highly-regarded reliever soon-to-be on an expiring. Over two years ago, they flipped Josh Hader at the deadline, trading him to San Diego for Taylor Rogers, Robert Gasser, Dinelson Lamet and Esteury Ruiz.

At the time, Hader was in the penultimate year of his contract and was expected to make double what Williams got the following season in arbitration. The cost was greater. I can’t say I liked the business they did here for one of the most dominant closers in baseball, however.

Cortes is a fine pitcher. His journey has been awesome, coming back to New York after a poor three seasons with Baltimore, New York and Seattle from 2018-20. Upon his return to the Bronx at the start of 2021, he developed into a reliable, crafty starting pitcher–finishing top-10 in AL Cy Young voting in 2022. He hit a rough patch in 2023 amid poor injury luck with a bumpy 2024.

He will be entering the last year of arb. and gives the Brewers a decent middle-of-the-rotation lefty that they didn’t have.

There’s also a world where Durbin is a good utility man. In Triple-A Scranton (82 games), he slashed .287/.396/.471 with 23 doubles, two triples, 10 homers and 60 RBIs. He’s a former Arizona Fall League MVP and will have all three options with over a handful of years of control left.

They’re not bad players. But we also see where the pitching market is at. We’re not long removed from the abhorrent deals made at the deadline for Tanner Scott, Trevor Rogers, Yusei Kikuchi and Jason Adam, among others. Sure, not all trades are created equally and not all of those pitchers are relievers, but the pitching market today is out of control … and good for those teams to land those players.

I just don’t think the cost for one of the best relievers in baseball should’ve been that low, even after a sour end to 2024.

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