Yankees flexible on Devin Williams reunion as negotiations restart
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Follow UsNew York — The Yankees and free agent reliever Devin Williams are back in contact after a season marked by frustration, boos, and an unexpected postseason rebound. What looked like a short-lived partnership now has a real chance to continue.
The Yankees and Williams ended 2025 on uneven terms. He delivered the highest ERA of his career and lost the closer role, yet he also struck out hitters at elite levels and finished the season with strong outings.
His postseason performance showed why teams still trust his upside. Despite the volatility, the Yankees are keeping the door open.
Yankees and Williams re-engage in talks
According to Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic “league sources” told them “the Yankees and the camp for free agent late-inning reliever Devin Williams recently discussed the potential for a possible reunion.“
Williams, 31, spent 2025 with the Yankees after arriving via trade from Milwaukee. His tenure featured dramatic highs and lows that tested both his resilience and the organization’s patience.
Williams dealt with a tough adjustment to the pinstripes when he was initially slotted as the closer. He stumbled out of the gate and lost the job.
But he settled down and gave the Yankees important innings later in the year. He ended the regular season with a 4.79 ERA, 90 strikeouts and 62 innings pitched. In October, he turned into the version the Yankees hoped for, delivering four scoreless innings with four strikeouts. His postseason contribution reminded scouts why he had been one of baseball’s top relievers with Milwaukee.
The Yankees did not extend Williams a qualifying offer, which opened the door for him to negotiate freely with any club.
Williams knows New York experience well
“I kind of got the complete experience,” Williams said after the season. “I started off bad. They’re booing me as I come out of the bullpen. So, obviously, I got the worst of it at the beginning. And then in the end, I think against Toronto, they gave me a standing ovation as I’m coming off the mound. I got the full experience.”
The reliever praised Yankees fans for their passion and the organization’s storied history. He called playing for the franchise a unique experience he will value regardless of where his career continues.
“It’s a unique place to play. It’s a special place to play,” Williams added. “They have a lot of history, a fan base that wants to win, and a fan base that is very passionate about their team. So it was really cool to experience something like that. To be able to say that I played for that team for at least a year will be something really cool to look back on.”
Rough start gave way to dominant finish
Williams stumbled badly out of the gate, posting an 11.25 ERA over his first 10 appearances. The stretch cost him the closer role as the pressure appeared overwhelming. He later recovered with a 3.83 ERA across his final 57 games.
The right-hander closed the season with 13 consecutive scoreless outings, including four playoff innings where he struck out four batters without allowing a run against Boston and Toronto. His home ERA of 3.69 contrasted sharply with a 5.93 mark on the road.
Bad luck played a notable role in Williams’ inflated ERA. He inherited six runners during the season and allowed none to score. But he left 10 runners for others to handle. Seven of them scored. The league average rate for inherited runners scoring is 31 percent. Williams saw 70 percent score. Only four pitchers in baseball had a worse mark.
Some of those moments came in difficult situations. On June 11, he protected a 6-0 lead after coming in with a runner on base. On May 27, against the Padres, he left the bases loaded in the eighth after keeping the score at 3-0. Luke Weaver allowed all three runs. Those runs were added to Williams’ line.
In Houston on Sept. 3, Williams walked the bases loaded. Boone removed him. Camilo Doval allowed all three runners to score. Those moments hurt Williams’ ERA even though some of the damage came after he left the game.
Bullpen depth drives Yankees interest
The Yankees enter the offseason with questions about their bullpen’s reliability. The Yankees have David Bednar at closer. Camilo Doval and Fernando Cruz remain setup options. The team picked up Tim Hill’s club option and brought back Ryan Yarbrough. Even with those moves, the bullpen lacks certainty. Bednar is only a year removed from a rough season in Pittsburgh. Doval struggled after the trade that brought him to New York.
Bednar finished 2025 as the closer but struggled through a nightmarish 2024 season in Pittsburgh. Doval posted a 4.82 ERA after joining New York at the trade deadline.
That uncertainty is one reason the Yankees want more depth. Williams sits behind Edwin Díaz on the closer market. He shares a tier with Robert Suarez. The Dodgers, Reds, Red Sox and Mets are also interested. The Yankees have to compete against top payrolls to bring him back.
Areas where he did decline
Williams also had genuine struggles. He allowed harder contact than in past seasons. Opponents produced a 36 percent hard-hit rate. His barrel rate dropped from elite levels. His signature changeup, known as the airbender, produced fewer weak swings. He allowed five home runs on that pitch while with the Yankees. He had allowed only seven with Milwaukee across 244 appearances.
Four of those home runs came during a three-week slump from July 20 to Aug. 8. The rest of the season, he looked more like his old self.
Why teams remain confident in Williams
Williams posted a career-worst 4.79 ERA across 62 regular season innings in 2025. The figure represented a stark departure from his 1.83 ERA compiled over six seasons with the Brewers, where he earned All-Star selections in 2022 and 2023.
However, advanced metrics paint a more nuanced picture of his performance. His 2.68 FIP, 3.09 expected ERA and 3.01 Deserved Runs Allowed all suggest Williams pitched significantly better than his ERA indicates. These tools strip away ballpark effects, defense and luck, pointing to a pitcher who deserved an ERA around 3.00. The 1.70 gap between his actual and expected ERA ranked among the largest in baseball for pitchers who faced at least 250 batters.
Williams maintained elite strikeout ability with a 34.7% strikeout rate that ranked in the 97th percentile. He struck out 90 batters while simultaneously posting his lowest walk rate since 2020 at 9.7%. In August, he whiffed an extraordinary 49% of batters faced, the fourth-best strikeout rate for any pitcher with at least 40 plate appearances that month.
At least 12 clubs, including the Dodgers, Red Sox and Reds, are tracking him. Even with that competition, the Yankees have remained involved. They want to strengthen a bullpen that still has questions around consistency.
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