William Contreras Was A Framing Fanatic in 2023

[Jason Wang]

Before coming over from the Braves, he was seen as an offense-focused catcher with some concerning defensive liabilities. That all changed last season.

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

In 2022, William Contreras made his first career All-Star appearance, but wasn’t quite a complete player. Despite having one of the best bats at his position and posting an OPS of .860, his catching metrics were lackluster at best. He struggled with practically every aspect, landing in the bottom quartile for framing, runners caught stealing, and blocking. After arriving in Milwaukee in a whirlwind three-team trade, many expected his offensive prowess to contribute positively to the team’s lineup, but there were concerns about his skills behind the plate. With a whole year of data now in the books, there are definitely some promising signs that he's becoming one of the most well-rounded catchers in baseball.

In his final year with the Braves, Contreras had -3 framing runs, worse than 80% of qualified catchers. In 2023, he jumped up to a whopping seven framing runs, the fifth-most in baseball. To see what changed, we can start by looking at the difference in the amount of strikes looking above average between the two years.

In 2022, we can see that he struggled with framing nearly everywhere, outside of a few hot spots in the upper part of the strike zone. He was notoriously bad at the bottom of the zone, potentially limiting his ability to frame any painted breaking balls or sinkers. His heat map in 2023 shows the results of the outstanding work done by the Brewers catching lab.

He improved immensely, almost flip-flopping his areas of strength within the strike zone. Along with the talented arms on the Brewers pitching staff, he lowered the knees of opposing batters and stole most of his runs in that area. This worked well with the existing arsenals of his pitching pals, with many Milwaukee pitchers depending on crafty breaking balls over blow-your-doors-off velocity. 

This is a graphic of all of his 2023 called strikes that were outside of the zone, categorized by pitch type. While the different types of fastballs dot all four sides, you can see the other 124 non-fastball pitches gather at the bottom. Here are a few video examples of how smooth this guy can be while absolutely robbing hitters in the lower half of the zone.

In total, Contreras stole an extra 323 strikes for his team, which seems like it should be some sort of white-collar crime, but it isn’t. For now, it’s just an impressive illustration of how good his glove was last season. If he keeps this up, Brewers fans should pray for the delay of the robo-umps for as long as possible.

His blocking skills also improved immensely, jumping from -3 blocks above average in 2022 to 8 blocks above average in 2023. If you’re interested in learning more about what made this possible, Esteban Rivera of FanGraphs had some excellent insight into some tangible changes Contreras made to correct these issues. One of the key adjustments he made was using his glove to catch right-handed breaking balls and offspeed pitches instead of using his chest, and Rivera includes some great video examples.

Contreras did it all last year. He won a Silver Slugger for his offensive efforts, beating out elite competition that included Willson Contreras and Will Smith, and if it weren’t for the stupendous skills of Patrick Bailey and Gabriel Moreno, he likely would’ve been at least a finalist for the Gold Glove, as well. With several more years of team control left on his contract and no signs of slowing down, the crazy deal that brought him to the great state of Wisconsin may pay off even more than expected.

Do you expect Contreras to hold onto his framing gains in 2024? What kind of long-term contract would you be willing to offer him right now? Sound off on the Brewers' best player.

Research assistance provided by TruMedia.

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[Brock Beauchamp]

The moment it became obvious Contreras was a different catcher, I wanted the Brewers to extend him.

Sigh. Now it's going to be very difficult to do that.

[sveumrules]

To lock Contreras up now have to imagine you gotta top Murphy at 6/73 minimum. 

I don't think William early extending was ever a realistic option though because beating his brother at 5/87.5 is probably the ultimate goal, that’s bragging rights for life.

[Jake McKibbin]

I think longevity is huge for catchers and although William Contreras has a remarkably athletic frame, it's a demanding position so I think I'm okay not locking up long term and enjoying the ride while it lasts. That being said, hitting more than just in her half fast balls and sliders would go a long way to taking him to the next level

[Bashopolis]

It is impressive, hot the Brewers have had success transforming poor catchers into excellent framers.  This allows Contreras to stay at catcher, which is great!  What is more difficult is improving a catcher's ability to throw out runners.  Contreras still isn't very good at this.  It might get a little better, but some of this is just natural talent.  

Contreras hits well enough and now frames well enough to overcome this deficiency but it limits his ability to be one of the top ten or fifteen defensive catchers.