Devin Williams is not pretending the Yankees fanbase liked him.
The former All-Star closer signed with the Mets earlier this week on a three-year deal. By Wednesday, Yankees fans were filling his DMs with complaints about the move. Williams used his Instagram story to fire back.
“For a bunch of people that didn’t want me back on your team, yall sure are mad in the DM’s,” Williams wrote, attaching a laughing emoji.
It is a fair point. Williams was not popular in the Bronx by the end. The 2025 season was rough. He went 4-6 with a 4.79 ERA. He lost the closer role at one point. Yankees fans treated him like a problem more than a solution for most of the summer.
The bigger issue is that the Yankees made structural concessions to get Williams in the first place, and now they have nothing to show for it.
New York changed a long-standing organizational policy to accommodate Williams when they traded for him last offseason. He was supposed to be the bridge to a championship bullpen. The move was supposed to lock down the back end for years. Instead, he had one rocky year, then walked.
That is the part that stings, and it is why the fan response was so loud. Yankees fans are not mad Williams is gone. They are mad he came in the first place, took a bad season worth of frustration, and then signed with the team they hate the most. The Mets, of all destinations.
Williams gets the last laugh because he is in a better spot now. The Mets are spending and building a real contender. The pressure in Queens, while real, is different from the pressure in the Bronx. Williams gets a fresh slate, a National League ballpark, and a fanbase that will give him a chance to start over.
The contract structure matters too. Williams reportedly has an unusual deal that gives him flexibility. The Mets clearly wanted him badly enough to be creative on the terms. That is the kind of treatment Yankees fans assumed he would get from them and did not.
The trolling will land differently depending on which fanbase you ask. Yankees fans see it as kicking them while they are down. Mets fans see it as Williams already understanding the rivalry. He is going to face Yankees lineups multiple times next year. He is going to hear it at Citi Field. He just made sure it is going to be louder.
Williams is 31 and has been one of the most effective relievers in baseball when healthy. The Brewers years showed what he can do. The Yankees year showed what happens when the strikes do not come, the velocity dips, and the New York fanbase decides you are the problem.
The bigger question is whether the version of Williams who shows up in Queens looks like the Milwaukee one or the Bronx one. The Mets are betting on a bounce-back. The Yankees are watching from across town with the same skepticism they had all season.
For now, Williams gets the satisfaction of telling Yankees fans they cannot have it both ways. They wanted him gone. He is gone. He is also still in their city and will be for at least three years. That is the part the Instagram story was really about.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
