1 Devin Williams stat NY Mets fans will love, 1 they'll marry, 1 to hate

Devin Williams just handed the New York Mets a bullpen wrinkle that feels more intriguing than triumphant. It’s the kind of bet smart teams make when upside still flickers beneath a messy year. His 2025 season mixed sharp stretches with unsettling dips, a combination that refuses to fall into one tidy narrative. This makes him an ideal subject for a round of Love, Marry, and Hate. He remains a pitcher whose craft can still surprise even when the results wobble. The numbers he carried into free agency reveal a profile shaped as much by tension as by talent.

Whiffs, poise under pressure and one bad habit fuel the Mets love, marry, hate.

Love: Mets fans know the Airbender remains his purest weapon

The seven-year veteran may be coming off his worst season, with a 4.79 ERA and a career-high 45 hits allowed, yet his fastball-changeup pairing still piled up 90 strikeouts in 62 innings. The Airbender refused to crumble with the rest of the stat line. Hitters managed only a .194 average and a .341 slugging percentage against it, and the pitch remained difficult to handle, even in what qualifies as a down year.

The pitch still delivered a 37.3% whiff rate, and its track record is even louder, averaging a 46% whiff rate and a .149 opponent average over the last four seasons. For comparison, Edwin Diaz’s slider generated a 44% whiff rate and a .179 BAA last season. With Williams leaning on the Airbender nearly half the time, Mets fans should get used to at-bats ending on swings that never stood a chance.

Marry: Mets fans can trust a pitcher who holds firm when runners reach scoring position

Mets fans will remember the headlines across town last season, the steady drumbeat about Devin Williams faltering in the ninth. His year was uneven, yet his work with runners in scoring position never truly unraveled. He held opponents to a .200 average and a .609 OPS in those spots, numbers that stayed steady even as other parts of his season slipped. Late and close moments rose only slightly. High-leverage situations were a different story, and the results in those innings reflected the broader inconsistency of his year, but his RISP footing remained firm.

That is why the Mets can view 2025 as a floor rather than a forecast. His last full season in 2023 showed the truest version of this skill, when he held hitters to a .104 average and a .492 OPS with runners in scoring position. The years before tell a similar story. In 2022, he limited opponents to a .212 average and a .656 OPS in those moments, and in 2021, the numbers settled at .213 and .658. That consistent calm under pressure is the version the Mets are marrying, the one supported by several seasons of evidence rather than a single noisy summer across town.

Hate: Mets fans know his walk habit can turn any inning into a balancing act

If there is one flaw that follows Williams from season to season, it is his tendency to hand out walks. Mets fans may be ready to marry the poise he shows with runners in scoring position, but no one wants every outing to start with a spike in blood pressure because of free baserunners. Even in his 2025 down year, his walk rate sat at 9.7 percent, the lowest he has posted since 2020, yet it still placed him in the bottom fifth of the league.

The broader trend is harder to ignore. He has averaged more than a 12 percent walk rate over the last four seasons, a stretch that consistently parked him in the bottom ten percent of MLB. Every pitcher has a flaw, and this is the one Mets fans will need to brace for. The medical staff might as well stockpile Tums around the ballpark now, because a few of these innings are going to test some stomachs.