What's Wrong With Williams?

By Cary Greene

April 23, 2025

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It seems like we may have a case of the Yankees mismanaging Williams as pitching coach Matt Blake has increased Williams' usage of his changeup from last season's 45 percent to 57 percent so far this season. This means Williams' usage of his four seam fastball has likewise declined from last year's 53.4 percent to only 43 percent this season. On the surface, the problems Williams has endured so far this year can certainly be highlighted by a complete reversal of his usage of his two pitch mix.

Is there more to the story though, I wonder? Williams has also seen a 1.1 mph drop in velocity on his fastball from last season to this season but most concerningly, opposing batters have posted an appalling .511 wOBA with a .371 xWOBA. In short, opponents are raking against Williams' fastball. Last season, opponents recorded a .228 wOBA/..241 xWOBA vs Williams' heater. It does seem like there is something very wrong with Devin Williams and the numbers are screaming this is the case.

Examining Williams’ 2025 Heat Maps show he’s either not locating his changeup for strikes or he’s leaving it belt high and also, its obvious he’s leaving his fastball belt high and out over the plate - which is a recipe for disaster.

Looking back to last season, Willams’ heat maps show a very different story.

Last season, Williams’ changeup was nailing the bottom of the strike zone and he was painting the black with it. He was also moving his fastball up and inside a lot more and it was much harder for hitters to barrel it up.

What we have here is a clear case of tinkering gone wrong and it’s messing Williams up. Its kind of weird to think that a pitcher should throw his best pitch less, but seeing as how Williams’ putout pitch is his devastating changeup, he needs to use it less and rely on his fastball to set up favorable counts for the deadly changeup.

Thus far in the early going, Williams isn’t locating either of his two pitches well and the Yankees aren’t helping him by increasing his reliance on his changeup - they’re actually hurting him.

What the Yankees need is to let Williams get back to his former self.

Tampering with pitch mixes works with some pitchers. It worked with Tommy Kahnle who learned to rely on his changeup more and more as he went along. In 2016 TK used his changeup only 16.2 percent of the time. The Yankees had him use it 72.8 percent of the time last season and this season, he’s ratcheted his usage of the change all the way up to 85.5 percent. The reason Kahnle can get away with doing this is that he locates the pitch to all quadrants of the strike zone and he largely drops it in for strikes as well.

Williams isn’t Kahnle and he isn’t Luke Weaver either. The Yankees have two choices. They either need to let Weaver get back to his old self or they need to surreptitiously renege on their change of the facial hair policy while installing Weaver as the new closer.