Forgotten piece of Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong trade signs last-minute deal with Rangers

September is upon us - and, with the change of the calendar comes roster expansions. For the Chicago Cubs, that meant the additions of BJ Murray and right-hander Tyler Ferguson. For the recently-released veteran pitcher Trevor Williams, it meant a new team for the season's final month.

Williams, 34, was released by the Washington Nationals in late August, but landed a major-league deal with the Texas Rangers in the nick of time. Since the deal came together on the last day of August, that means Williams is postseason-eligible - a major plus for both he and his new club.

After missing more than a year recovering from UCL surgery, Williams returned to the Nationals, pitching out of the bullpen. He pitched to a 2.65 ERA as a multi-inning reliever, working 17 innings and averaging nearly a dozen strikeouts per nine. He'll slot into a similar role in Texas and the Rangers are surely hoping for better results than they got in his debut on Tuesday, when he allowed three earned in 1 1/3 innings of work against the Athletics.

For Cubs fans, though, Williams is important for one primary reason. No, it's not because he made 12 starts and a relief appearance back in 2021. It's not because he, like Hoby Milner, underwent an emergency appendectomy in-season. It's because he was part of the franchise trajectory-altering trade that brought Pete Crow-Armstrong to Chicago.

Trevor Williams helped make Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong trade possible

When we think about that trade, we think almost exclusively of the two big pieces that traded hands: Crow-Armstrong and former NL MVP runner-up Javier Baez. Baez, along with franchise cornerstones Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, were all dealt at that 2021 MLB trade deadline as Jed Hoyer looked to reshape the organization after taking over from Theo Epstein.

Williams, though, went to Queens along with El Mago, and was actually much better with the Mets that year than he was with the Cubs. He was a jack-of-all-trades, making 30 appearances, including nine starts and finishing five games. The former second-round pick worked to a 3.21 ERA down the stretch for New York and parlayed that performance into a two-year deal with the Nationals.

Now, obviously, it was Baez that made the PCA deal possible. But baseball always seems to have these fun connections years down the road. Now, Williams will try to help the Rangers reach the postseason and make the first playoff appearance of his 11-year MLB career as Crow-Armstrong chases down MVP hardware and seeks a deep October run of his own with the Cubs.

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