Brewers decline option on Williams; closer still under club control

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers declined All-Star closer Devin Williams’ $10.5 million club option for 2025 on Sunday, but while the move has implications for the payroll, it does not impact Milwaukee’s roster; Williams remains under club control.

Understanding that wrinkle requires going back to last winter and spring, when Williams and the Brewers avoided arbitration with a one-year, $7.25 million deal that included a club option for ’25 to cover his final arbitration year. Had Williams been healthy all season, exercising that option would have been an easy call. But it was complicated when Williams missed the first four months with stress fractures in his back, and wound up limited to 22 appearances in the regular season. They were vintage Williams, who logged 14 saves, a 1.25 ERA and 43.2 percent strikeout rate.

Because of the truncated season, the salary he will get via arbitration is likely to be less than the $10.5 million it would have cost the Brewers to exercise the option. Williams instead will receive a $250,000 buyout in addition to his arbitration salary for 2025.

Brewers GM Matt Arnold declined to go into detail about the mechanics of Sunday’s decision, saying that Williams, “will go through the process like others.”

Here’s another wrinkle to consider over the winter: With just one year until he hits the open market, Williams could be a high-profile trade candidate this offseason or at the 2025 Trade Deadline.

When asked about that possibility last month, Arnold said, "We have to stay open-minded. We're the smallest market in the league, so that's something that's required in the place that we are. But as far as Devin Williams goes … I still believe he's the best closer in baseball and I'm happy to have him.”

The Williams move was one of three decisions announced on Sunday by the Brewers, who formally exercised their $8 million option on starter Freddy Peralta, as previously reported, and who declined a $3.5 million club option on backup catcher Eric Haase, who had no buyout.

Haase, like Williams, remains under club control as an arbitration-eligible player.

What's next? Essentially, the Brewers start from square one in negotiations with Haase and Williams, along with their other unsigned players. The next deadline is Nov. 22, when teams must tender 2025 contracts to players at a salary to be determined. If a player is non-tendered, he becomes a free agent. Otherwise, he continues negotiations about a salary for next season.

If an arbitration-eligible player and his team still can't agree by Jan. 10, they formally exchange salary proposals through the league and begin to prepare for an arbitration hearing in February.

Williams, a two-time All-Star, has an ERA of 1.83 in six years in the Majors, all with the Brewers. He has saved 65 combined games the past three seasons, including in 2024, when he made his debut on July 28 and finished the regular season with a 1.25 ERA in 21 2/3 innings. In his final appearance of 2024, Williams allowed a go-ahead three-run homer to Pete Alonso in the ninth inning of Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series.

The 30-year-old right-hander made his MLB debut for Milwaukee in 2019 and won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 2020, when he allowed just one earned run in 27 innings (0.33 ERA) and struck out 53 hitters. Williams took on the Brewers’ closer role when Josh Hader was traded to the Padres at the 2022 Trade Deadline, saving 15 games in 2022 and 36 in 2023. His 40.8% strikeout rate since 2020 is third among all pitchers with 200 or more innings pitched in that span.

If the Brewers do decide to trade Williams this winter, they would be following the same strategy they employed with All-Star starter Corbin Burnes. Like Williams now, Burnes had one year of club control remaining when the Brewers dealt him to Baltimore last February for two Major League-ready prospects, third baseman Joey Ortiz and left-hander DL Hall.

Of course, that would leave a big hole at the back of a Milwaukee bullpen that has been a team strength, including in 2024 when the Brewers overcame Williams’ early-season absence to post the NL’s best bullpen ERA. Trevor Megill, who logged 20 saves in Williams’ absence, would be a leading candidate for that spot. He is arbitration-eligible this winter for the first time in his career.

The Brewers also have Abner Uribe coming back from knee surgery; he began last season as the closer before a suspension for his role in an April fracas with the Rays, followed by a demotion, then an injury, derailed the rest of Uribe’s 2024.