I speculated the other day that the New York Yankees might trade Nestor Cortes, although I thought they might use him to acquire a bat, not a reliever. Instead they packaged him and a fringe prospect for Milwaukee Brewers closer Devin Williams, a swap of two guys entering their final seasons before free agency. Williams takes over Clay Holmes’ spot in the bullpen, but if Cortes is healthy again he’s probably going to provide more total value to the Brewers because of his role.
Cortes’ Yankees tenure ended on a sour note, as he gave up the grand slam to Freddie Freeman that won Game 1 of the World Series for the Dodgers in what turned out to be his penultimate appearance in pinstripes. He hadn’t pitched in five weeks, however, due to a flexor strain that ended his regular season on Sept. 18; that’s an elbow injury that can be a precursor to a torn UCL, the injury that typically requires Tommy John surgery. Cortes had another quietly strong season as a Yankees starter, 2.6 bWAR/3.1 fWAR, his second such year in the past three where he was worth at least 2.5 WAR in both systems and threw at least 150 innings. In between, he only made 12 starts and threw 63 1/3 innings in 2023 due to a hamstring strain and two IL stints for rotator cuff strains, so the Brewers acquired a potentially above-average starter whose projection is volatile because he’s been hurt so much, including both his elbow and shoulder, in the past 24 months.
Cortes works primarily with a fastball and cutter, throwing those two about 70 percent of the time, with the four-seamer playing up because it has plus vertical break and hitters have to anticipate both that pitch and the cutter, which can be almost sliderish with its tilt and total break. The Cuban lefty dominates same-side hitters and is effective enough against righties to start, although they hit him for a lot of power. In his two healthy seasons of 2022 and 2024, he’s given up 40 homers, and 37 came from right-handed hitters, with righties hitting him harder overall (.256/.301/.459) this past season. The Brewers already have Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Brandon Woodruff (coming off shoulder surgery) and Tobias Myers in their rotation; I would take a healthy Cortes over Myers, and Woodruff is a huge 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 makes 28 starts again.
Williams isn’t exactly the picture of health, either, as he missed half of 2024 with stress fractures (plural!) in his upper back and came back a somewhat different pitcher. Pre-2024, Williams was wildly successful because of his “airbender” changeup and huge extension of 7.6-7.7 feet toward the plate; after his return last year, 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 changeup was still devastating, with even more tumble in 2024 than in the previous two years, balancing out some of the lost deception from the reduced extension over his front side. Because his out pitch is a changeup, he’s shown very little platoon split in his career, holding left-handed batters to a .168/.293/.268 line. A full season of Williams would have been better than any Yankees reliever’s season in 2024, and whether he throws the ninth inning or works in higher-leverage spots earlier in games, he does make them better.
The Yankees talked up Caleb Durbin after he had a nice AFL performance, with Aaron Boone pretending Durbin might be their second baseman to start the year, but this trade shows that was all a smokescreen. Durbin can run, and he can put the ball in play, but he has next to no power. His average exit velocity in AAA 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 would have ranked last in the majors by almost 2 mph. He’s 5-foot-6 and already maxed out, so I’m skeptical that he can add any strength to improve his contact quality. He’s played all three skill positions on the infield and dabbled a little in left and center, but doesn’t have the arm for shortstop or third. He might be a good last guy on the bench because he has some speed and puts the ball in play at such a high rate (his strikeout rate in Triple A last year was just 9.9 percent), but I don’t see anything more.
(Top photo of Nestor Cortes: Luke Hales / Getty Images)
