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The New York Mets didn’t sign Devin Williams to rediscover himself. They signed him because they believe he already has.
According to reporting from the New York Post’s Dan Martin, Williams is leaning into what he calls “mental toughness” as the defining takeaway from his turbulent 2025 season with the New York Yankees. A year that saw him lose the closer’s job twice and, at times, look nothing like the All-Star weapon he was in Milwaukee.
But here’s the thing about relievers: dominance can evaporate quickly, and so can confidence. The Mets are betting that Williams’ confidence didn’t just survive last year—it hardened.
The Mets Are Buying the Bounce-Back, Not the Breakdown
Williams finished 2025 quietly strong, stringing together nine straight scoreless appearances to close the regular season and adding four more in October. That stretch, he told The Post, felt like “me… that’s my standard.”
That comment matters more than the ERA column.
Closers operate in psychological quicksand. One bad outing spirals into two. Two become a narrative. In the Bronx, every blown save felt amplified. In Queens, the spotlight won’t be dimmer. It’ll just be different.
The Mets didn’t just replace Edwin Díaz after he left for the Dodgers. They replaced volatility with a different kind of volatility. One rooted in execution rather than emotion.
Williams’ calling card remains his elite changeup, a pitch that, at its peak, generates absurd whiff rates and forces hitters into defensive swings. When he commands it, he’s untouchable. When he doesn’t, the margins vanish.
That’s where mental toughness stops being a cliché and becomes a competitive advantage.
Williams referenced 2018, his post–Tommy John season in the minors, as the lowest point of his career, admitting there were moments he wanted to quit. He didn’t. He adjusted. He arrived in the majors in 2019 and quickly became one of baseball’s most dominant late-inning arms.
The Mets are wagering that 2025 was a reminder, not a regression.
A Different Pressure Cooker in Queens
Manager Carlos Mendoza publicly backed Williams, noting the adjustments he made last season and the difficulty of navigating early struggles. That endorsement isn’t just managerial politeness. It’s structural.
The Mets’ bullpen will look different in 2026, and Williams won’t have the luxury of easing into high leverage. He is the leverage. New York’s roster construction suggests they expect to contend. That means tight games. That means one-run leads. That means Citi Field is holding its breath in the ninth.
What makes this fascinating isn’t whether Williams can handle adversity—he already has. It’s whether he can convert that adversity into consistency.
Relievers often talk about “short memory.” Williams is selling something slightly different: long memory with perspective. He remembers how bad it got, he remembers pushing through it, and he remembers what dominant feels like.
That self-awareness might be the most important adjustment of all. Because the Mets don’t need the 2025 version who searched for mechanics.
They need the version that ended the season, attacking hitters with conviction. If Williams truly believes the final stretch of last year represented his standard, then 2026 isn’t about redemption. It’s about validation.
And in a city that rarely offers patience, that belief, more than any radar gun reading, may determine whether the Mets stabilized the ninth inning or simply inherited someone else’s turbulence.
Alvin Garcia Born in Puerto Rico, Alvin Garcia is a sports writer for Heavy.com who focuses on MLB. His work has appeared on FanSided, LWOS, NewsBreak, Athlon Sports, and Yardbarker, covering mostly baseball. More about Alvin Garcia
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