The New York Yankees’ newest reliever Devin Williams is ready to embrace the challenge of closing the show for the team in 2025.
Devin Williams looks to live up to great Yankees closers
Per MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, Williams is all for striving to be as great as the legendary Yankees closers who have come before him:
“I’m excited for it,” Williams said. “They obviously have a long history; Mariano, Aroldis [Chapman], they’ve been the best of the best. I’m just trying to add my name to that list, hopefully. I think it’ll be good for me. I’m someone who thrives off the energy. When I can feed off the fans, that’s always a good thing for me.”
The two-time National League Reliever of the Year is one of the best show-stoppers in the MLB. He’s coming off a 2024 campaign where he sported a 1.25 ERA and 14 saves for the Milwaukee Brewers.
Williams can mirror Mariano Rivera & Aroldis Chapman
Compared to former Yankees closers Rivera and Chapman, Williams’s career 1.83 ERA outpaces the former’s 2.63 ERA and the latter’s 2.17 ERA through the first six years of their respective tenures in the Majors. However, while he grew into a featured role in his fourth campaign, the Missouri native has the potential to graduate to being a high 30s and low 40s saves maestro like his predecessors.
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Rivera helped lead the Yankees to five World Series crowns while Chapman managed to collect two Fall Classic crowns. If Williams follows in their footsteps, he can aid the Yankees in their pursuit of their first World Series victory since 2009.
That’s what it would likely take to put him in rarified air with those two all-time greats, even despite his already illustrious career from an individual standpoint. The Yankees’ passionate fan base will surely add fuel to his fire and bring out the most in him in 2025 and beyond.
