This is not how NYC should react to the news that Devin Williams is staying.
As everyone surely knows, Williams recently signed a three-year contract with the Mets, for $51 million, or $17 million per season. Seventeen million.
Yesterday, the newly christened lifetime New Yorker went on social media to answer the angry words he has been reading on social media.
“For a bunch of people that didn’t want me back on your team," he posted, "y’all sure are mad in the DMs.”
FWIW: I did not want Williams back. And I am not mad.
Nope. I am not perturbed, flummoxed or dismayed, though I must admit to being slightly flabbergasted, almost to the point of discombobulation. Yep, I am a tiny bit gobsmacked, but not in a bad way. In fact, I believe I speak for the Yankiverse in saying, "Meh." We should wish Williams the best, as he seeks to find whatever it was that eluded him throughout all of 2025.
In Williams, the Mets have purchased a vast bouquet of red flags. For starters, he is 31, the most transitional age for a professional athlete since his gonads drop. Hitting 31 affects the jock in the way that puberty does the church choir's best soprano.
Last year, after six great seasons in Milwaukee - a career ERA of 1.83 - he shat the bed. His ERA as a Yankee: 4.79. He lost the closer role and was given better platoon matchups. Didn't help. Now and then, he'd pitch a scoreless inning, to be hailed by the YES team as if Lassie had bounded in from the bullpen. Then, he would fail again.
Listen: If you want to rant - (and we all do) - let's not confuse Williams with Juan Soto, who lapped up every morsel of Yankee fan love and then pissed on us, all for a few extra thin dimes.(He loves only gold... only gold.) Soto turned out to be so pathetic that he actually blamed a security guard for his leaving. There's a special dung heap in Hell for Soto, and we should scrape his name off the bottom of our shoes. He should never hear the cheers of Old Timers Day.
But holding anything against Williams? I say, Meh.
Yeah, last year, he sucked. He squandered our trust. Maybe he'll figure out what happened and correct it. In fact, I bet he throws a perfect inning now and then, prompting the Mets broadcast booth to yell that LASSIE IS BACK!
But I donno. I bet Williams signed with the Mets because his family wanted to stay in NY, his kids are in school, and the Yankees simply didn't make an offer. To Cooperstown Cashman, he simply represents a deal gone bad.
(Woof?)
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15 comments:
Cashman……
A deal gone bad ?
NEVER !
We will follow him
Follow him wherever he may go
There isn't an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep, keep us away
They call him Cashman, Cashman, Faster than lightning
No one, you see,
Is smarter than he
And we know Casman, Cashman
Lives in a
World full of wonder
Splashing thereunder
Under, uh, like, you know
Under Hal’s pee
Me, I don’t care about Williams or Soto or any of them. Once there gone, they’re gone, baby, gone…
Very fun, AA.
If I knew how to glide backward on my tail across the surface of the water while making dolphin noises, I would.
Meanwhile, what is Cashman doing? Can’t help but think of the old Brin Wilson song “Busy Doing Nothin’” :
I get a lot of thoughts in the morning
I write 'em all down
If it wasn't for that
I'd forget 'em in a while
I wrote a number down
But I lost it
So I searched through my pocket book
I couldn't find it
So I sat and concentrated on the number
And slowly it came to me
So I dialed it
And I let it ring a few times
There was no answer
So I let it ring a little more
Still no answer
So I hung up the telephone
Got some paper and sharpened up a pencil
And wrote a letter to my friend
Cashman? Why he...
Missed the Saturday dance
Heard they crowded the floor
Couldn't face making a real deal
Don't get around much anymore...
Lassie got me going, LBJ.
What can I say but
Have a great Day!
Very funny guys. Great piece, Duque. And yes, to quote the great Elvis Costello, I'm not angry anymore. At least not about Devin. Anyone who fucks up as massively as he did, gets a huge new contract, and then taunts his old fans is not exactly what I would call a gamer. Good riddance to bad rubbish...
The guy I AM angry about is—surprise, surprise—Pal Brian.
I never thought a closer who throws only a soft pitch was a good idea. But WTF do I know about the mechanics of baseball?
Apparently more than Brian Cashman, who took the guy who surrendered one of the most dramatic, clutch home runs in Mets history over the guy who gave it up...
...But I'll say this for Devin: he had least stunk it up early enough and consistently enough that Cashman had plenty of time to trade him. Displaying his trademark timidity—presented, as usual, as boldness—he failed to trade Williams.
As a result, we got nothing for him on his departures, not even magic beans (see Gray, Sonny, and about 40,000 other examples).
No real GM for a team that really wants to win it all does this and survives. Nobody. Sure as hell not for a record-setting, 29th season.
(The alternative, of course, is that Devi reverts to form with the Metsies...which would make Cashie's failure not to get anything for him all the worse, AND expose how bad the Yanks' coaching staff is.)
To return to our usual Elvis quote, well, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused.
Actually, I got past amused, to baffled, irritated, flummoxed, enraged, and finally to learned helplessness. Great to be one more of Hal Steinbrenner's lab animals.
Sounds like the annoying girl in high school telling everyone "no, I dumped him" after one failed date.
And the guy forever says "boy, did I get lucky dodging that bullet".
Thanks a lot AA. Great funny idea, but now i can’t get that fucking song out of my head
Duque "There's a special dung heap in Hell for Soto, and we should scrape his name off the bottom of our shoes."
What is it with Yankee fans and Juan Soto? Just let it go ....
I knew when we traded for him that he'd be gone after one year. (That's why it was a stupid trade. Four pitchers for a player who'll walk away after one year.)
Not only that, but Yankee fans seem fixated, tunnel visioned on the Cashman side of the story. Which is that Soto walked away for a few extra coins.
But that's not how it really went down. Soto says he was ready to sign with the Yankees, but "they kept changing stuff" during negotiations. Eventually, he got flabbergasted and signed with the Mets.
I'd certainly lean toward the Soto version of events. For one thing, "kept changing stuff" definitely sounds like Cashman. For another thing, that's one of the techniques that good negotiators use when they don't really want to make a deal. You keep changing stuff until the other side throws their hands up in the air and leaves flabbergasted. (See Vladimir Putin, Russo-Ukraine War) Last, what has Cashman ever done that we should credit his side of the story?
And the final story line is that we dodged an asteroid the size of the Yucatan peninsula. Soto wasn't particularly great last year. He might be okay for a few years, but the last decade of that contract is going to be a killer for the Metsies. We should really be thanking Steve Cohen and the Mets for taking this epic disaster off our hands.
It's ditto with Devin Williams. We should be thanking Cohen & the Mets for taking him off the table. How's he different from Juan Soto? Why do some Yankee fans feel differently about the two of them? I don't know. Is it because Soto played well here before he jumped ship? No need to think about what Soto did in his one year with the Yankees because it still didn't result in a championship. Can you remember a bigger butt smacking in the World Series than 2024? You'd have to go back a ways. Maybe Yankees-Padres. I can't think of any more embarrassing World Series than that in my entire time as a baseball fan. Just as well that he's gone. We can lose without him.
How's the Soto or Devin Williams thing different from the Cody Bellinger opt-out? I would say chances are about 100 to 1 against the Yankees re-signing Bellinger. And I would say, good riddance.
IMO if a player opts out, they really are leaving for a few more coins. If you really want to be here, you play out the rest of that contract, then go for a renewal. Players who opt out really should not be re-signed. The team should go a different path. But hey, that's just the way I feel about it.
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