It is a ritual as old as time. The Brewers are developing an intriguing young player into an All-Star, and a fun one at that. Next, that player turns to free agency – that’s how time works. The Brewers then trade that player to a contending team, getting back some players who had team control for several years. Finally, the Brewers are developing this Turn the players into stars, spin the wheel again and the band continues playing. Today’s Edition: Milwaukee traded Devin Williams to the Yankees for Nestor Cortes and infield prospect Caleb Durbin, as first reported by Jeff Passan.

Williams is the rare pitcher who isn’t even as famous as his best pitcher. Nicknamed “The Airbender,” his screwball/changeup hybrid has been making top players look like inferior children for years. Based on this pitch and a plus fastball, he has posted a 1.83 ERA over five-plus dominant seasons in his career. His career strikeout rate of 39.4% reads like a typo. He rose to prominence during the 2020 season and has since become the second-best reliever in baseball, behind only Emmanuel Clase.

It doesn’t matter what you call the pitch; Williams’ results speak for themselves. “Changeup-first dominant close” only sounds uncertain until you look at the raw data. He misses more at-bats than Josh Hader. He might even be better than his run-prevention numbers suggest, because the runs he gives up come in large quantities. In 2023, for example, he gave up 10 earned runs all year, four of which came in a single game. The bottom line: He ranks first among relievers in terms of win probability, as a truly incredible number of his games end in scoreless innings. He’s no Mariano Rivera, but he might be the closest thing in today’s game: an automatic ninth inning.

Williams was available as he will reach free agency after the 2025 season. The Brewers love to build elite bullpens, but they do it particularly sparingly. Their payroll is around $120 million, and he will (rightfully!) be making about $20 million per year if every team can bid on his services next winter. He’s a true rental – he’s just so good that the Yankees gave away two interesting players for one-year replacements anyway.

Like Williams, Cortes will be a free agent after the 2025 season. Like Williams, he doesn’t operate like most other pitchers. But while Williams has an unparalleled breaking pitch as his one strange trick, Cortes is all funk. He changes speeds and throws five or six different throws, depending on which classification system you prefer. He varies his delivery endlessly, sometimes within the same beat. He disrupts timing and uses elite command to avoid walks.

It doesn’t look like it should work, but it does. In his four-year stint with the Yankees from 2021 to 2024, he posted a 3.33 ERA, 3.68 FIP and 9.4 WAR despite intermittent injury issues. No one feels comfortable during a Cortes start, from the opposing batsman to their own team’s fans. He constantly walks a fine line to get hitters out with mediocre stuff – and he manages this balancing act with remarkable frequency.

Durbin, the second player Milwaukee got for Williams, is a weirdo himself. He’s 5’10” tall and, to quote Eric Longenhagen, “built like a Tyler O’Neill a size smaller.” His career path – record-setting high school wrestler, Division III baseball standout, late-rounder -Draft pick that was included as a lottery ticket in a trade for a reliever – is just outside the central lineup. I’ll draw liberally on Eric’s notes here to paint a picture, but keep this in mind: Durbin has a faint hint of magical realism, as if he existed in a world similar to, but not quite like, ours.

Durbin anchored the minors in 2023 after being acquired from the Braves for Lucas Luetge following the 2022 season. In 2024, he broke his wrist and played in just 90 games as a result – but in those games, he posted a blistering .287/.396/.471 batting average, walked more often than he hit, and stole 29 sacks while throwing just three was caught once. He did this while playing solid defense at second and third, and also defending at shortstop and in the outfield when necessary.

He manages to do this about as well as you would expect. Thanks to his compact swing, which punishes pitches in the zone, he makes a lot of contact, especially in the zone. There’s a lot of lift and pull in his game, and his excellent bat control helps him stay ahead even against good opposition pitches. Baseline velocity numbers weren’t great in 2024, but wrist injuries often sap strength for a while even after players return from them, so it’s reasonable to project some improvement in this area next year.

Such an approach has its limitations. It would be completely irresponsible to predict above-average production at the major league level from a 5-foot-11 hitter until we have seen significantly more evidence that he can sustain that performance. But he ticks so many boxes offensively that I would be very interested to see how it works in the big leagues, because he has a lot of skills that can’t be taught: bat control, command of the strike zone and the ability to make pitches identify and attack those it can damage.

Defense will be crucial to the overall package here. Eric likes his defense at second and third, although he is less optimistic about his ability to handle short positions. Durbin may not have the speed to handle the middle, but he has great baseball instincts and solid acceleration, as seen by his superior baserunning skills. He’ll never sniff center in the Milwaukee outfield anyway, and he’s a good right wing option at either corner. He also seems like a nice platoon partner for Brice Turang in second place. Here’s a video of Durbin in this year’s AFL action, courtesy of Longenhagen.

All three players in this profession feel like they could be characters in a baseball movie. Williams nails a one-of-one pitch with a killer name. Cortes doesn’t seem like a good big league pitcher, but he still made it thanks to his willingness to use any trick at the drop of a hat. Durbin feels unlikable across the board – the path to fame, the body type, everything you can imagine. If you wanted to make one Ocean’s ElevenIn a baseball player style heist movie, all three guys would fit the bill thanks to their eccentricities and strengths.

But the actual trading? It’s right in the middle, standard stuff for both the Brewers and Yankees. The point of a New York-level budget is that instead of people like Cortes, who can replicate a Max Fried-level production if everything goes well, you can just sign Max Fried. Even after trading Cortes, the Yankees have a loaded rotation; Clarke Schmidt is slated to be their sixth starter and I would be happy, if not ecstatic, to start him in a playoff game.

Likewise, Durbin is an intriguing player and someone you’d like to have as a utility option at the league minimum – but the Yankees don’t have to pay the league minimum, and coming off Aaron Judge’s best season, they want security at most positions more than the league minimum. Oswaldo Cabrera isn’t all that different from Durbin in terms of overall utility and value, although he accomplishes it in a different way.

Williams, on the other hand, lets the Yankees play the way they want. Manager Aaron Boone likes to use his bullpen aggressively in high-stakes games, and using Luke Weaver as a fireman makes that unit even deadlier. Williams is the best there is at his position, and the Yankees can either keep him after this year or get a compensatory pick should he leave in free agency. He addresses a really weak position, and all he cost the Yankees was a soon-to-be free agent starter that they had trouble finding room for and a minor league utility infielder. This trade makes their major league team much better and probably won’t cost them much in the long run.

Milwaukee also gets exactly what it wants. Cortes clearly isn’t as elite as Williams, but he could be a better fit for the Brewers, even in a one-for-one trade. You definitely need to start pitching; Even with Cortes in the mix, there are a lot of question marks in their rotation, especially how many innings Brandon Woodruff will throw. The Milwaukee bullpen was outstanding in 2024 when Williams missed the first half of the season, and the organization’s development team has done an incredible job finding replacements and working with them to develop new skills. The Brewers are exactly the kind of team that would prefer 160 good innings to 60 great ones.

Add to that a utility infielder with six years of team control? This is a classic Brewers move, and it actually fits well with the roster; They need an infielder who can cover second and third, they’d rather have him right-handed, and some outfield coverage wouldn’t hurt either. It wouldn’t shock anyone if Durbin completed three or four league-average seasons as a Swiss Army knife. This trade has a lot in common with the Corbin Burnes trade that Milwaukee made last offseason — and the Josh Hader trade before that, and the Carlos Gomez trade before that, and, well, you get the point.

In summary, this is the most win-win trade between competitors that I have seen in a long time. Here everyone gets what they are looking for. Both teams improve their chances for 2025. Both squads look better in their new lineups. All players are fun. The only thing I don’t like about this trade is that I didn’t come up with it myself. What a joy.