New Yankee Devin Williams Is Happy to Have His Beard Back

Reminiscing about the trade, Williams says one of his first thoughts was his chin when he was informed of the deal. Apparently the club’s now-defunct policy was a big talking point in MLB circles. “I think everyone who has a beard, that would be the first thing that comes to their mind,” Williams says. “It was definitely a thing that everyone was well aware of, and some guys weren’t really the biggest fan of.” But as the team begins not only a new season but a new era of grooming, Williams will get to bring the beard, which he considers a part of his identity. “I just prefer to have facial hair,” the Missouri native says. “I like the way I look that way. I was rocking that little scraggly struggle beard for a while. But it got there eventually.”

The Yankees will get a chance this year to gather empirical evidence for the “look good, feel good, play good” theory. Williams is one of a handful of players on the roster with beard experience—others have dabbled during the offseason, or when they played for different teams—and he knows the power of feeling yourself on the field. Williams has been one of the best relief pitchers in the game for essentially his entire career, bursting onto the scene with a Rookie of the Year-winning campaign in 2020—when he put up a ridiculous 0.33 ERA during the abbreviated Covid season—and posting a sub-2.50 in every year since. “I don’t know if [the beard] necessarily gave me more confidence,” he began. “But I absolutely believe that feeling good about the way you look bleeds into other aspects of your life, for sure.”

Speaking of which, Williams is excited about another aspect of being a Yankee. With all due respect to the bespoke clothing boutiques of Wisconsin, the shopping in New York is a whole different ballgame. “That was the highlight of coming here every year, just getting to do all the shopping that they don’t have in Milwaukee,” Williams says. “I love to shop. I’ve always felt like I was pretty stylish.” As a minor leaguer rocking the struggle beard—and even in his first few MLB years making a much slimmer salary than the $8.6 million he’ll collect this year—his outfits were financially constrained. Not anymore. As he puts it: “It’s a little different when you’re working with a bigger budget.”

A whole year in New York—which is all Williams is under contract for, with free agency looming at season’s end—is sure to provide several bites of Big Apple retail therapy. As he looks around the Yankee clubhouse, taking in his new reality, the right-handed pitcher has a twinkle in his eye. “When I’m 65 years old, it’ll be cool to look back on that year I lived in New York,” he says. “Or maybe it’ll be more.”

Williams will certainly never forget his first outing with the Yankees, which was a little hairier than he would have liked. But after throwing 36 pitches in a tense ninth inning on Thursday, Williams and his edged-up beard earned the save and the Bronx Bombers’ first win of the season. The visual combination of pinstripes and designer stubble on the Yankee Stadium mound will probably take a few games to get used to, but as Williams would like to remind you, this is a different world than the one his glabrescent Yankee predecessors lived in. “Back in the day that wasn’t the style,” Williams says. “Everyone had a shaved face. When like fucking Babe Ruth was playing, no one had beards!”