Photo via Nestor Cortes - Instagram
Nestor Cortes pitching viewed from above
Nestor Cortes
“Will the Brewers trade Devin Williams?” was widely known to be one of the MLB offseason’s biggest questions, but the way it happened might raise more questions than it answered.
The Brewers traded arguably the game’s best reliever to the Yankees late last week in a move that felt a lot like last offseason’s Corbin Burnes trade. While the Burnes trade was all about dealing one year of an elite pitcher for several seasons of cost-controlled young talent, however, a big part of the return of the Williams trade was another pitcher in the same situation.
Longtime Yankees and now Brewers pitcher Nestor Cortes turned 30 years old over the weekend and, like Devin Williams, he’ll be a free agent a year from now. Cortes has been really good for the Yankees in three of the last four seasons, excepting a 2023 campaign where he struggled with shoulder trouble. Cortes set a career high with 174 ⅓ innings pitched in 2024 but his season ended in discouraging fashion: He went on the injured list in September with an elbow flexor strain, often a predecessor to needing Tommy John surgery,
Good News, Bad News
The good news for Cortes is that he was able to pitch again in the World Series, and under the hood at least one primary indicator suggested his strength was back: He was able to throw his fastball around 92-93 miles per hour in his pair of World Series games. The bad news is that one of his last outings as a Yankee ended with an extremely memorable bad outcome: Cortes hadn’t pitched in a game in a month before the Yankees put him into a World Series game in relief and he gave up a walk-off grand slam on his second pitch. The Brewers must have seen enough from that combination of Cortes’ World Series outings and medical records to be convinced he’s healthy, as it would be disastrous for all involved if he ended up needing elbow surgery that would wipe out his lone season in Milwaukee. Cortes and Williams have similar arbitration salary projections for 2025 (MLB Trade Rumors has both at $7.7 million), but the Yankees are paying $2 million of Cortes’ salary.
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Trading for prospects always requires teams to tolerate some uncertainty, but the minor leaguer the Brewers received in this trade might have a higher range of possible outcomes than most. Infielder Caleb Durbin is 24 years old and has been highly effective when he’s been on the field in the upper minors over the last two seasons but has missed more than half of his teams’ games over that time. Despite all that missed time he’s stolen a ton of bases, including 29 in 24 games in the prospect-rich Arizona Fall League this year.
Durbin has been often overlooked throughout his career at least in part because of his height: He’s listed at just 5 feet 6 inches tall. It’s not impossible for a shorter player to have a long and successful big-league career, but it’s uncommon. There were only five position players listed at 5’6” or below who played even one game in the majors in 2024 and only one of them (Astros second baseman Jose Altuve) was a full-time player. Altuve is also a possible future Hall of Famer, but anytime a list of successful precedents is just “that one guy” it’s a red flag.
Durbin can play second and third base, however, and as we noted last week depth at the latter can be hard to come by. As the Brewers try to figure out a plan to replace Willy Adames, having positional flexibility certainly has some value. For Durbin to provide that value, however, he’d have to both stay healthier than he has recently and significantly outperform most players his size. MLB Pipelineisn’t high on his chances, slotting him into the Brewers organization as just their #15 prospect.
The Brewers have certainly overcome the departure of star players before: A year ago it looked like they were taking a step back with the Burnes trade before they bounced back and won the NL Central again in large part due to adding Joey Ortiz. If they’re going to contend in 2025, they’ll need to weather some major losses again, however, and the players they got back for Devin Williams suggest a wide array of possible outcomes.
