Mets could be building a super-pen with addition of Devin Williams; could Edwin Diaz join him?
Devin Williams Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Signing Devin Williams is a major offseason W for the Mets, who checked another significant box Monday night by adding one of the game’s best closers to a bullpen that very much remains a work in progress.
Williams on his own is a solid building block, but that doesn’t seem to be the end game here. The Mets are thinking bigger, and adding Williams on a three-year deal worth $51 million, as a source confirmed Monday, is only the start of another attempt by president of baseball operations David Stearns to create the super-pen he failed to successfully assemble at last season’s trade deadline.
The Mets still have Edwin Diaz in their sights, and the idea of pairing him with Williams — who apparently is fine taking over the setup role if it comes to that — would be the early coup of the offseason for Stearns & Co.
When free agency began, the concept of the Mets stacking Diaz and Williams at the back end of their bullpen sounded a bit far-fetched. Sure, Williams was coming off a down year (a 4.79 ERA) with the Yankees, but his resume was worthy of earning him a closer’s gig somewhere at a top-market rate.
Williams still could wind up in that role for the Mets if Diaz chooses to sign with another club, and it’s very possible that he could price himself out of Flushing if the bidding gets too crazy in the coming days. Considering that Diaz just opted out of his five-year, $102 million deal with the Mets — leaving the final two years and $38 million on the table — it’s not unreasonable to think he’s shooting for another contract that mirrors the original even though he’ll be 32 in March.
Now the Mets have some additional leverage in their negotiations with Diaz as well as a suitable backup plan, thanks in part to the existing Milwaukee connection between Stearns and Williams, who rose to his “Airbender” dominance during their time together with the Brewers.
While it’s certainly true that Williams didn’t seem like a happy camper when he was first traded to the Yankees — in the swap that sent Nestor Cortes and infielder Caleb Durbin to Milwaukee — and experienced a boo-filled Bronx ride in which he forfeited the closer’s job, he repeatedly said he wasn’t averse to giving New York another try.
Given that the Yankees already had given deadline acquisition David Bednar the closer’s title, returning to the Bronx figured to be a long shot for Williams, but evidently the Mets were the better fit.
Not only does Williams get to stay in New York, but he has the added benefit of a fresh start and the chance to put last year’s outlier season behind him just on the other side of the RFK Bridge.
Whatever weight Williams still carried as the undeniable catalyst of the Yankees ditching a facial-hair ban that existed for more than a half-century, that’s now gone, along with being haunted by his failures in pinstripes.
There is one interesting bit of baggage that could follow him to Flushing, however, and that depends on what happens with Pete Alonso. The Mets’ all-time home run leader smashed his most iconic blast off Williams to knock the Brewers out of the playoffs in 2024, a soul-crushing three-run shot in the ninth inning that many suggested broke the Airbender, given his uncharacteristic troubles with the Yankees.
Two years later, we can’t imagine that having any lingering impact on the two if they share the same clubhouse. But Alonso’s return to the Mets hardly is a sure thing at the moment, and with the upheaval underway in Queens, is further breaking up the core part of Stearns’ mission going forward?
It was only a week ago that Stearns pulled off the shocking trade that shipped Brandon Nimmo, the longest-tenured Met, to the Rangers for second baseman Marcus Semien, a two-time Gold Glove winner designed to fulfill the team’s “run prevention” pledge. Nimmo was the Mets’ first-round draft pick in 2011, and last season Steve Cohen included him in his “Fab Four,” the owner’s affectionate moniker for the team’s core group.
But Nimmo was the first significant player sacrificed for the team’s winter renovation — after nearly the entire coaching staff was gutted beneath manager Carlos Mendoza — and now Stearns is bringing in a familiar face (from his Milwaukee days) to potentially replace Diaz if they can’t agree on a new contract to put together this imagined super-pen.
The Mets used some creative structuring with the Williams deal, according to a source, as $5 million from each season will be deferred and the $6 million signing bonus will be prorated over the three years of the contract, which will reduce the payroll hit for luxury tax purposes. With Williams and Semien now on board, that’s roughly $36 million paid to those two players for 2026, with about $289 million already on the books for next season.
Obviously, Cohen intends on spending plenty more, and the Mets have a lot of holes to fill — another starter or two, more bullpen arms, a first baseman, two outfield spots. But Stearns already has executed a pair of seismic franchise moves by the start of December, and baseball’s winter meetings — which again should include a four-day frenzy of deals — don’t kick off until Sunday in Orlando.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
