These are two very specific and very different subjects. We didn’t invent this duality for Devin Williams, he just happens to be the latest athlete about whom the question seems especially relevant.
As to the first, it umbrellas a number of questions. And it goes something like this:
Were Devin Williams’ struggles with the Yankees a result of the vagaries of relief pitching? So often, late-inning specialists not named Mariano Rivera trend up and down, like a volatile stock, season to season. Did he just have an off year, and is he now due for a market correction? Is this the start of something longer and more troubling? Was he hurt? A mechanics issue?
These are the kinds of questions all teams in all sports ask themselves when it comes to acquiring an athlete, and committing the kind of money the Mets just did (three years, $51 million) to a player coming off something less than a career year in their walk year. They are fair issues.