Trade Details: New York Yankees acquire RHP Devin Williams for LHP Nestor Cortes and IF Caleb Durbin

I recently speculated that the New York Yankees might trade Nestor Cortes, although I thought they could use him to acquire a slugger, not a reliever. Instead, they grabbed him and a secondary candidate for Milwaukee Brewers closer Devin Williams, a trade of two guys entering their final season before free agency. Williams takes Clay Holmes’ spot in the bullpen, but when Cortes is healthy again, he will likely provide more value overall to the Brewers given his role.

Cortes’ Yankees tenure ended on a sour note when he gave up the grand slam to Freddie Freeman to win Game 1 of the World Series for the Dodgers, in what turned out to be Cortes’ second-to-last appearance in pinstripes. However, he had not played in five weeks due to a flexor muscle strain that ended his regular season on September 18. This is an elbow injury that can be a precursor to a torn ACL, the injury that typically requires Tommy John surgery.

Before the injury, Cortes was having another fairly strong season as a Yankees starter, 2.6 bWAR/3.1 fWAR, his second such year in the last three years in which he was worth at least 2.5 WAR in both WAR systems and pitched at least 150 innings. In between, he made just 12 starts in 2023 and threw 63 1/3 innings due to a hamstring strain and two IL stints because of rotator cuff strains, giving the Brewers a potentially above-average starter whose prognosis is inconsistent due to the injury he suffered in the last 24 months He suffered many injuries, including his elbow and shoulder.

Cortes primarily works with a fastball and a cutter, throwing those two about 70 percent of the time, with the four-seamer playing up because it has plus vertical break and hitters anticipate both the pitch and the cutter have to, with which you can almost slide its inclination and complete break. The Cuban left-hander dominates same-side hitters and is effective enough against right-handers to start, even though they hit him for a lot of power. In his two healthy seasons in 2022 and 2024, he has yielded 40 home runs and 37 have come against right-handers, although right-handed hitters hit him harder overall last season (.256/.301/.459).

The Brewers already have Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Brandon Woodruff (coming off shoulder surgery) and Tobias Myers in their rotation. I’d prefer a healthy Cortes to Myers, and Woodruff is a big wild card after missing all of 2024, but regardless of how you line them up, Cortes could easily be worth 2-3 wins for the Brewers if he returns to 28 starts.

Devin Williams played in 22 games in 2024 after making at least 58 appearances in each of the previous three seasons. (John Fisher/Getty Images)

Williams isn’t exactly in good health either, as he missed half of 2024 with stress fractures (plural!) in his upper back and came back a slightly different pitcher.

Prior to 2024, Williams was extremely successful due to his “airbender” changeup and massive 7.6-7.7 foot extension at the plate. After returning from last year’s back injury, that extension dropped to 7.3 feet, still in the top 10 percent of all MLB pitchers but back to where he was mechanically in 2020-21. His transition was still devastating, with even more falls in 2024 than in the previous two years, making up for some of the lost deception from the reduced extension across his front.

Because his out pitch is a changeup, he has shown very few platoon splits in his career and holds left-handed batters to a .168/.293/.268 line. A full Williams season would have been better than any Yankees reliever season in 2024, and whether he’s pitching the ninth inning or working higher-leverage spots earlier in games, he makes them better.

The Yankees approached Caleb Durbin after he had a good AFL performance, and Aaron Boone claimed Durbin could be their second baseman early in the year, but this trade shows that was all just a smokescreen. Durbin can run and put the ball in play, but he has next to no power. His average exit velocity in Triple A was 83 mph, his barrel rate was just 3 percent, and his EV50 (the average exit velocity of the top 50 percent of his batted balls) was 92.3, which nearly ranked last in the majors 2 miles per hour.

Durbin is 5-foot-10 and is already at his limit, so I’m skeptical that he can add strength to improve his contact quality. He has played all three skill positions in the infield and dabbled a bit at left and center, but doesn’t have the arm for shortstop or third. He could be a good last guy on the bench because he has some speed and puts the ball in play so quickly (his strikeout rate in Triple A last year was just 9.9 percent), but that’s all I see.

(Top photo by Nestor Cortes: Luke Hales / Getty Images)