The Brewers will be renewing the contract of right-hander Devin Williams for 2022 season, The Athletic’s Will Sammon reports. Club president of baseball operations David Stearns commented on the move, saying “We understand players have a right to take a renewal and look forward to watching Devin continue to make significant contributions to our team this season.”
As standard practice, teams agree to terms on contracts with all of their pre-arbitration players, even though there usually isn’t much real negotiating that takes place since pre-arb players don’t have leverage in demanding big raises beyond the minimum salary. Most teams have formulas in place that do award raises to pre-arb players based on seniority or on particular achievements, though this can usually amount to a relatively small amount of extra money (maybe a bonus of $10K or $20K).
If a player doesn’t accept the team’s proposed salary, then the team can still give that same salary to the player, yet via a renewal rather than an “agreement.” It is essentially something of a symbolic gesture reflecting that the player doesn’t agree with the number being offered by the team, and it doesn’t impact Williams’ status with the Brewers. Quite a few prominent players over the years have opted for renewals rather than regular agreements, and Williams now joins this list of notable names.
Williams earned $681.1K last season, coming off an outstanding 2020 campaign that saw him capture NL Rookie Of The Year honors and finish seventh in NL Cy Young Award voting. If that season has been played under the terms of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, Williams would have received a significantly higher 2021 salary, as per the new $50MM bonus pool for pre-arbitration players and the extra money allotted for awards — the top two finishers in ROY balloting, top-five finishes for MVP or Cy Young balloting, and a spot on the All-MLB first or second team.
2022 is Williams’ final pre-arbitration season, as the reliever is slated for three arb years before becoming eligible for free agency after the 2025 season. While Williams will get a raise as he enters the arbitration process, he is also the type of player whose true value isn’t accurately reflected by the traditional counting stats preferred by arbiters in deciding cases. Williams’ whopping 42.9% strikeout rate or his 1.78 ERA in 2020-21 could be somewhat belied by his lack of saves, as Josh Hader (himself a dominant reliever) remains Milwaukee’s closer.
With Hader always rumored to be on the trade market, however, Williams would seem like the natural heir apparent to the closer’s job if the Brewers did indeed opt to send Hader elsewhere. Williams would also seem like a logical candidate for a contract extension, if the Brew Crew wanted to get some cost-certainty over Williams’ arb years (such as if a new closer role did lead to a big increase in saves) and into at least one or two of his free agent years.
still dont get how this sort of thing is news, tbh. it’s exceedingly common.
So are early ST injuries, should they not be reported either?
they are much more consequential
The contract details crack open the door for a future dispute, and we all love those.
And it’s still better than the near daily Carlos Correa (and others) market watch.
no, they dont
This is a prime example of how effed up the mlb system is. Clearly he’s an outstanding player and under any other normal situation, he would be paid near/at/above market value. If a new accountant/lawyer/doctor/any job ever was performing better than his senior counterparts, he would either get a huge pay raise or the ability to leave to a position that would pay him at least market value. In baseball however, we basically have a controlled systems that really screws players. And most of these players are only skilled at one thing, baseball… no other reasonable skills to translate to the real world. So if this cat gets a career ending injury tomorrow, even though his performance was similar to others making millions, he would be capped and punished all in the name of being new. Kinda outrageous
Have you lived in the same world as the rest of us? Performing well from the start at most jobs doesn’t get you a raise or paid above market value. As an accountant that’s hilarious, and the two lawyers I know would laugh at that as well. Especially when you are able to get in the door at a “high end” employer. And MLB is that type of employer.
This is the normal situation. You’re describing the ideal situation.
Now imagine that company selected this accountant as an 18 year old then gave him $4,000,000 and paid on the job training.
Let’s workshop this into Rainman 2
@bravesfan – This is no different the other professional sports. Great rookies are so valuable due to their (low) cost certainty. While the NFL pays higher starting salaries, especially for first round picks, Patrick Mahomes was paid at his standard, year 3 rookie contract rate too, which led to their Super Bowl victory. Nothing really effed up about it. The Brewers could choose to try and lock him up on a long term deal, but that would require Williams to most likely leave some serious money on the table should he continue to dominate.
Adding a 3rd pitch combination SL/Cutter to his FB/CH pitch mix. Said he has better FB command than at any point last year & his CH is at mid-season form. Big year ahead.
Punching a wall and missing the playoffs. I’m sure the brewers are so happy about that.
I’m surprised that’s nowhere in the story. His absence vs Atlanta really hurt us. (No, I don’t think the Brewers win. We still couldn’t hit the ball.) It was stupid/selfish move on his part.
Williams can punch out hitters and walls but he can’t hit. Still mad Counsell pulled Peralta in game 4. Gotta get outs.