Devin Williams hopes to join a long list of Yankee closers who have been successful in the Bronx, highlighted by the greatest of all time in Mariano Rivera.
The newest Yankee pitching addition spoke with reporters on Tuesday and didn’t hide his excitement when discussing the possibility of following in Rivera’s footsteps as the man on the mound when the Yanks secure the final out of a World Series championship.
“I’m excited for it,” Williams said. “They obviously have a long history with Mariano, Aroldis [Chapman], those guys have been the best of the best. I’m just trying to add my name to that list hopefully. I think that will be good for me. I thrive off the energy. When I can feed off the fans, that’s always a good thing for me.”
Williams, who the Yankees acquired in a trade with the Brewers last week, represents the highest profile closer New York has had since Chapman and Rivera, as he heads to the Bronx holding the lowest ERA by a qualified reliever over the past five seasons with a mark of 1.70. For context, during what was arguably the best five-year stretch of Rivera’s career, from 2002-06, the unanimous Hall of Famer posted an ERA of 1.83, striking out 305 batters in 348.2 innings of work. Williams, with his devastating changeup contrasting Rivera’s signature cutter, has struck out 361 batters in his five-year run despite throwing 125 fewer innings in that span.
Of course, as the response to the 2024 season result highlights, winning in October is all that matters in the Bronx, and in that regard, Williams arrives with plenty to prove.
The righty bounced back from missing over half the season with a back injury, but the lasting image of his 2024 season is surrendering a three-run home run to Pete Alonso in the deciding game of the Wild Card Series, coughing up a two-run ninth inning lead when the game, and the series, felt like it was in the bag. The disastrous inning only enhanced the narrative that Williams struggles in the postseason, as he now has allowed six earned runs in 2.1 playoff innings, but he still believes that his mentality is made for October, and won’t let a small sample size lead him to question his makeup.
“Obviously I know I haven’t had the most success in the postseason so far,” Williams acknowledged. “But at the same time, it’s been three innings.
I haven’t really had that much opportunity. We’re all aware of how things turned out this year. I wish they turned out differently, but I'll put myself in that situation every time. I'll never shy away from that moment. I want the ball. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity.”
Williams’ short playoff history will be under close scrutiny in New York, much more so than it was in Milwaukee, but Williams insists he is ready for the pressure. Coming off a year in which Clay Holmes and his league-leading blown saves were all the talk for months in the Bronx, Williams is intent on embracing the expectations of taking the ball when a win is on the line.
“When it’s close, it makes me focus more,” Williams said. “At times, I think you can lose focus if you don’t feel like the game is one the line in that moment. It makes me lock in that much more. I’m looking forward to every opportunity.”
Williams’ regular season dominance certainly suggests that he has the mentality made for a closer. His five-year run rivals Rivera’s peak dominance. The key difference? Rivera didn’t allow his sixth earned run in the playoffs until game one of the 2001 ALCS, when he had already logged a whopping 69 playoff innings. That will be the focus of Yankee fans when it comes to their new closer, no matter how automatic Williams is during the regular season, but Williams says he is ready for the scrutiny, the pressure, all of it.
“It was a bit of a shock, but it’s a tremendous honor to be able to play for this organization,” Williams said. “There's no bigger team in baseball. I'm very happy to be here.”