Unfortunately for Devin Williams and the Milwaukee Brewers, the back specialist he was seeing did not have good news. Not at all.
The Brewers’ closer is going to be out for a while:
Devin Williams Injury Update
First and foremost, that’s just an awful injury. You hate to hear about structural back stuff for a relatively young guy, because even if you can get past the specific injury right now and continue on to a very successful career, problems can return later in life. Don’t want that for anyone.
As for the competitive side of things, the news is obviously terrible for Devin Williams, 29, as he enters his final contract year with the team, plus a team option thereafter, and then free agency. He was riding four straight mostly healthy seasons, during which time he posted an absurd 1.75 ERA. Maybe he bounces back just fine for this in the second half, but it’d still be only a half-season of work, and there will be questions going forward.
For the Brewers, it’s a massive loss. One of the best pitchers on their staff, serving in one of the most important roles, will now be unavailable to them for the first half of the season. They’ll try to replace his production internally, I would assume, but even the Brewers can’t just conjure up a Devin Williams replacement out of nowhere. No, this is going to sting. They’ll just have to hope they can withstand the loss for the first few months of the season, and then he comes back strong for the second half and stretch run.
Still, in the meantime, it’s going to be very weird to observe the Brewers. Like I said last time:
The team is already now without Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and Craig Counsell, so the Brewers are going to look dramatically different in 2024 from last season in any case (and obviously Josh Hader has been gone a year and a half). Without Williams, that pitching staff would become borderline unrecognizable – at least in terms of what we most associate with “successful Brewers pitching” in recent years – and would test the organization’s ability to find pitching impact and stay competitive in 2024.