Throughout final week’s introductory press convention, new Mets reliever Devin Williams expressed a willingness to arrange Edwin Diaz, whom many anticipated to return.
However Williams additionally dropped a line that flew a bit extra underneath the radar.
“Every team I talked to was for the closer role,” Williams stated.
Williams is now set to be the Mets’ nearer, as Diaz agreed to a three-year, $69 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday following seven seasons in Queens.
Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns confirmed Williams can be the nearer if the season began at this time and stated the workforce is “very comfortable with that.”
“I’ve certainly seen Devin perform at a very high level for a long time,” Stearns stated on the winter conferences in Orlando. “Have full confidence that he can be one of the best relievers in baseball. I think he’s very motivated to do that and I’m looking forward to watching that.”
On paper, Williams — a two-time Nationwide League Reliever of the Yr with 86 profession saves — is as sturdy of a Diaz substitute {that a} workforce may discover.
Williams boasts a 2.45 ERA and a traditionally elite strikeout fee of 14.1 per 9 innings over seven MLB seasons, the primary six of which he spent with the Milwaukee Brewers.
However Williams enters the 2026 season with uncertainty after a roller-coaster one-year stint with the Yankees by which he pitched to a career-worst 4.79 ERA and was twice faraway from the nearer function.
By comparability, Diaz — a three-time Reliever of the Yr — posted a 1.63 ERA and 28 saves in 31 alternatives final season.
Williams, 31, acknowledged transferring from small-market Milwaukee to New York required an adjustment, and he ended the season on a excessive notice with 13 consecutive scoreless appearances, together with the playoffs, because the set-up man to David Bednar.
Now acclimated to New York, Williams might be primed for a return to kind with the Mets, who signed him to a three-year, $51 million contract.
“It’s familiar now,” Williams stated. “I know what I’m going to need to do in order to get to the field, things like that, you know? Like getting home — just life stuff. So I’ve got all that figured out already and I’m comfortable there.”
Whereas Williams’ general 2025 numbers had been properly under his commonplace output, the right-hander’s underlying metrics present hope for a rebound.
Williams’ chase proportion, swing-and-miss proportion and strikeout fee all ranked inside MLB’s 97th percentile, whereas his anticipated ERA of three.09 was practically two runs decrease than his precise one.
“He had a handful of games that destroyed the overall numbers,” Yankees basic supervisor Brian Cashman stated not too long ago. “I thought he pitched pretty close to what he’d always pitched in the years gone by.”
Williams’ drawback was that the unhealthy outings got here in bunches. He pitched to a 9.00 ERA in March/April, then endured a stretch over the summer time by which he both blew a save or suffered a loss in 4 consecutive video games.
After his preliminary struggles in pinstripes, Williams started calling his personal pitches through PitchCom.
“I feel like there were a lot of factors, really,” Williams stated final week of his 2025 season. “Some mechanical, pitch-selection-type stuff, looking back on it. [I am] just kind of reflecting on that and using that to help me prepare for this next season.”
The imaginative and prescient for the Mets’ bullpen modified Tuesday when Diaz left in free company.
As an alternative of deploying a super-pen with Williams within the eighth inning and Diaz within the ninth, the Mets now flip their focus to constructing a bridge to their new nearer.
Aside from left-hander A.J. Minter, who is anticipated to return from the lat surgical procedure that price him most of 2025, and fellow lefty Brooks Raley, that bridge stays a piece in progress.
But when Williams can regain his constant dominance, ninth innings gained’t look too totally different for the Mets — even with Timmy Trumpet’s “Narco” presumably following Diaz to Los Angeles.
“You’re talking about one of the best relievers for the past few years, a guy that’s used to pitching in high-leverage and [with] closing experience,” Mets supervisor Carlos Mendoza stated of Williams. “We’re looking for help down there, and the fact that we got one here, I was excited.”
