The Brewers traded closer Devin Williams to the Yankees on Friday for a player who can help now in lefty starter Nestor Cortes, another who can help in the near future in infield prospect Caleb Durbin, and cash, a source told MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The teams have not confirmed.

It’s no surprise that the Brewers are parting ways with the 30-year-old Williams, even though they are two-time defending National League Central champions and he is one of their best pitchers. Williams was the 2020 NL Rookie of the Year Award winner, two-time All-Star and two-time NL Reliever of the Year with a changeup so good it has a nickname (The Airbender) and a strikeout rate of 39, 4 percent fourth all-time among pitchers who logged at least 20 innings in their career.

Williams was at stake because Williams, like former NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes last season, only has one more season left before hitting free agency, and the Brewers were motivated to trade him for at least one Exchange a player who can be controlled for several years.

In the 24-year-old Durbin, they got that player, a second baseman and third baseman with a chance to help Milwaukee offset the departure of free agent shortstop Willy Adames while also trading future free agents Williams and Cortes. The exchange helped meet the needs of both clubs.

The Brewers coveted rotation depth behind personnel chief Freddy Peralta, and Cortes has a 3.61 ERA in 126 regular-season games (85 starts) for the Yankees over the past five seasons, including an All-Star campaign in 2022 All-Star campaign went 9-10 with a 3.77 ERA while reaching the 30-start plateau for the first time, although he finished with had to deal with a sore shoulder this season.

The Yankees, meanwhile, acquired one of baseball’s best closers in Williams, who missed the first four months of 2024 with stress fractures in his back before posting a 1.25 ERA and 14 saves in 22 regular-season games. He lowered his career ERA to a sparkling 1.83 in 241 career games.

If there’s one setback for Williams that he wants to resolve with New York, it’s his misfortune in the postseason. In 2020, Williams missed the NL Wild Card Series against the Dodgers with a sore shoulder. In 2021, he missed the NL Division Series with a broken hand after hitting a wall following the team’s division victory celebration. In 1923, he gave up two runs in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series against the D-Backs when the Brewers were down one run.

And in 1924, Williams had a chance to send the Brewers past the Mets in the NL Wild Card Series, giving up Pete Alonso’s three-run home run in the ninth inning of a Game 3 loss that provided a stunning end to the Brewers’ season.

In that way, Williams and Cortes have something in common — a role in two epic postseason home runs. It was Cortes who pitched in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 1 of the World Series and collected Dodgers star Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam.

The Brewers had a $10.5 million club option on Williams next season, but declined it because his injury early in the season meant he was expected to earn less in arbitration. In fact, the two most commonly cited forecasting systems project that Williams and Cortes will earn nearly identical salaries next season, in the range of $7.5 million to $8 million, once the arbitration process is complete.

Just as important as the Brewers’ signing of Cortes was the signing of Durbin, who was added to the Yankees’ 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft.

Durbin finished last season in Triple-A and increased his record in the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .312/.427/.548 with five home runs and 29 stolen bases in 24 games, tying the previous record set by Rick of 24, Holifield broke in 1994, when the AFL’s schedule was almost twice as long as it is currently. Durbin wasn’t in the Yankees’ top 30, but should be added to the list in the next update.

“Honestly, I think he’s a guy,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said last month. “Great bat-to-ball (skill), elite ability on the bases as a base stealer, a good defender in the middle of the diamond at second base. He’s really started to create some positional flexibility over the last year as well. … Really competitive, kind of a tenacious, tough player.”

Durbin gives the Brewers plenty of options to replace Adames. Milwaukee has two players who could fill that vacancy: Brice Turang, who won the NL’s Platinum Glove last season as the league’s best overall defender, and Joey Ortiz, a natural shortstop who manned third base for Milwaukee last year.