Yankees may have avoided Devin Williams Trade 2.0 amid Brewers' spiral

In case the way the Devin Williams situation unfolded wasn't enough to scare Yankees fans away from dealing with the Brewers ever again — especially for a fungible reliever — Trevor Megill's past should've given Brian Cashman even more fuel to stay dormant.

After all, it was Megill who was the loudest about what the Yankees tend to get away with during the brief Torpedo Bat Scare of Ought 25, stating, "It's the Yankees so [MLB] will let it slide." The bats were legal, but he was already neck-deep in excuses just in case.

That didn't dissuade the Yankees from calling this offseason. Thankfully, they weren't as motivated this year (or the Brewers preferred to hold onto their closer, all things considered).

Trevor Megill's early struggles would've been a hard-to-stomach disaster in Yankees bullpen

Given the Brewers' unwillingness to move off Megill, their All-Star closer, his early 2026 struggles are genuinely surprising. Milwaukee has become the best in the game at knowing when to cut bait on relievers who are about to regress — see: The Devin Trade — and backfill immediately.

Last year, they swapped Megill in for D-Will, who could never adjust to the Yankees despite the team catering to his facial hair whims. His strongest work came in the eighth inning down the stretch. It was fine. It wasn't worth Caleb Durbin.

This year, Milwaukee will probably have to swap again. Megill's stuff is diminished, and his blown save against the Blue Jays on Tuesday — very annoying! — was his second straight outing that looked like a pitcher lost on an island, begging for answers.

In much the same way that Tatsuya Imai's current situation feels like an especially poor fit for the Yankees' pressure cooker, think about the way fans would've handled Megill — their second consecutive Milwaukee interloper with reduced stuff following Devin Williams.

Hell, look at the way Brewers fans are handling Megill. Here's how Pat Murphy addressed their rampant boos during the postgame of the Toronto loss on Tuesday:

“After he saved 30 games for this team, A kid that’s been through all that he’s been through … came out with an arm injury and still pitched in one of the biggest innings of Game 5 (NLDS)... and for them to be booing him up there, that’s just not our best fans. … These aren’t machines out there. These are people. And I thought that was in poor taste.”

These are people. They're also people who are paid handsomely to do a job, and managers (who are also paid handsomely) are supposed to know when they're unable to handle said workload. The man in the arena deserves more blame than the fans who can't comprehend what happened to a player and team they loved — but if this is how bad it's gotten in Milwaukee, imagine how awful it'd be in the Bronx if Cashman had overpaid and swayed the Brewers' hand.

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