Yankees' Devin Williams deserves better than overreactions by fans
Devin Williams #38 of the Yankees reacts during the ninth inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, Mar 27, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It’s a time-honored tradition, as old as the grand sport itself.
It is, at the time of this writing, April 11, the baseball season is about two weeks old, and some player who has had excellent success up until this very moment clearly is washed up — doomed to haunt the annals of history as a shriveled husk of unfulfilled potential.
That’s right. It’s time to overreact.
None of us is above it, and certainly, Yankees fans had reason for concern Wednesday when their highly touted closer said he simply didn’t feel like himself. Devin Williams, the two-time All-Star who was part of the trade that sent Nestor Cortes to the Brewers, has lived a nightmare in his short time in pinstripes.
In the 4-3 win over the Tigers on Wednesday, it meant giving up three ninth-inning runs before Mark Leiter Jr. got the final out.
Williams nearly cost the Yankees their Opening Day victory over the Brewers and allowed the ghost runner to score in their 5-4, 11-inning loss to the Pirates last week. His signature pitch, a changeup dubbed “The Airbender,” hasn’t been bending air as much as playfully caressing it as batters square it up and take it for a ride.
All of which means he went into Friday night's game against the Giants 0-1 with a 12.00 ERA in four appearances spanning three innings, walking four and striking out five.
You might look at that and see the “12.00,” which is fair. But it’s equally important to look at the “three innings,” and realize that no matter how this season shakes out, the overreactions are just that.
No, the Yankees don’t need to close by committee. No, this is not the player Williams has proved himself to be. And yes, they’re going to need him if they are to dominate. Which means that as painful as it may feel, Aaron Boone and Co. are going to have to be patient with his failures and continue to use him in high-leverage situations.
“He’s our closer, so you’re not going to force him in [lower-leverage spots] too much,” Boone said Friday. “He’s going to get through this — it’s just that next layer, next level of strike-throwing, and once he does that, he’ll be in a good spot.”
It’s so easy to be reactive, and the proliferation of armchair sports pundits out there tend to make things much worse. But Williams didn’t flat-out forget how to pitch no matter how ugly his Baseball Savant page looks right now. If anything, because of recent injuries (and oh, that massive go-ahead homer he gave up to Pete Alonso in the clinching Wild Card Series game last year), it can be easy to forget that Williams is one of the top-tier closers in baseball.
In 245 games, he has a 1.96 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP, 380 strikeouts in 238 2/3 innings and a 216 ERA+ — a whopping 116% better than league average. (It was 231 entering this season, an even more spectacular 131% better than league average.) And, if it makes you feel any better, he’s historically been less effective in March and April, owning a career 3.86 ERA in those months, mostly courtesy of ghastly starts in 2021 and 2022.
Williams, for his part, said the sparse early-season workload has made it difficult to get into a groove. He missed three of the Yankees' 12 games because of paternity leave. The Yankees also have been playing in brutal weather, which plays nasty games with pitchers’ grips.
And the changeup will come, Boone said. He knows that because Williams has thrown a few decent ones.
“It’s just as simple as that next-level layer of strike-throwing to where he’s dictating the counts,” Boone said. “And now he gets unpredictable where, if they want to sell out on the changeup, the fastball then really plays for him. But making sure that he’s commanding that fastball to set everything up, then you’ll start to see the chase follow on the changeup and you’ll start to see the weak contact on the balls in the zone.”
It's a measured, educated response, and while it doesn’t exactly adhere to the early-season tradition of breathless overreaction, we’ll have to let that slide this one time.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
