Milwaukee Brewers Decline Options on William Contreras, Rhys Hoskins, and Jose Quintana

[Matthew Lenz]

The Milwaukee Brewers have been busy making option decisions over the last two days. Yesterday, they exercised the option on Freddy Peralta, while declining Danny Jansen's option. Additionally, starting pitcher Brandon Woodruff informed the team that he would be opting out of his deal, making him a free agent.

Today, they declined three more options: William Contreras, Rhys Hoskins, and Jose Quintana, per the team's official X account. Hoskins and Quintana are set to become free agents, while Contreras will be retained via arbitration.

Hoskins was limited to 90 games in 2025 due to injury, but once available, he was a plus bat in the lineup. Across 328 plate appearances, he carried a .748 OPS with 12 home runs and two stolen bases. This resulted in a 109 wRC+, indicating he was 9% better than the average MLB player. The Brewers will pay him a $4 million buyout instead of a $16 million salary in 2026.

Quintana, who was set to make $15 million in 2026, will receive a $2 million buyout after making 24 starts and sporting a sub-4 ERA. However, his 4.61 FIP and 7% K-BB suggested he wasn't as effective as his ERA would suggest. Though he is a solid innings eater and provides a veteran presence, FanGraphs Value metric estimated he was worth just $6.8 million in 2025. At 37 years old, he will look to find a major league deal with another club.

Contreras is in his second year of arbitration and is projected to make slightly less than his $12 million option would have paid him.

Do you think the club made the right call on Hoskins and Quintana? Would you like to see them bring either player back? Let us know in the comments!

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[dlk9s]

7 minutes ago, Matthew Lenz said:

Do you think the club made the right call on Hoskins and Quintana? Would you like to see them bring either player back? Let us know in the comments!

I don't get this. This is a message board, not Facebook or YouTube. Like and subscribe!

[yfinn6]

1 hour ago, dlk9s said:

I don't get this. This is a message board, not Facebook or YouTube. Like and subscribe!

Smash that subscribe button! 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, dlk9s said:

I don't get this. This is a message board, not Facebook or YouTube. Like and subscribe!

It's not only a message board. This piece also appears this way, which is shared on social media platforms.

[Frisbee Slider]

I wonder how much we save by declining Contreras option. 🤷‍♂️

[Frisbee Slider]

Obviously right call on Hoskins. I think we captured the right amount of value with one year of Quintana. I’m sure we could always trade for him in 2026, if necessary 🙂

[RobertCrawley]

14 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Obviously right call on Hoskins. I think we captured the right amount of value with one year of Quintana. I’m sure we could always trade for him in 2026, if necessary 🙂

Yes, couldn't risk another year and $18 million to find out if he can find the old magic. Someone will give him a chance. It will be interesting to see how well he plays.

I like Quintana because he brought old school professionalism to the club. Maybe he's the fourth pitcher in the rotation and eats innings in the regular season, but not in the playoffs and not at $15 million.  

 

 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

4 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

I wonder how much we save by declining Contreras option. 🤷‍♂️

Yeah. I get that we play the game hard with arby. But this seems like one where you keep some goodwill and just figure you're going to pay 2 mil more than you should next year. Mark A can afford it.

OTOH, Contreras will never sign a long-term deal here. His market will be huge. There's no real practical advantage to avoiding arby. The shrug says it all.

[bm1090]

Agree he’d never sign a long deal here. But he played all year with a broken finger that needed a procedure right after the season. He was a vocal leader and led by example. Really would have been a great guy to reward, and it rubs me the wrong way a bit that they didn’t.

[Frisbee Slider]

6 hours ago, bm1090 said:

Agree he’d never sign a long deal here. But he played all year with a broken finger that needed a procedure right after the season. He was a vocal leader and led by example. Really would have been a great guy to reward, and it rubs me the wrong way a bit that they didn’t.

I doubt playing with a broken finger helps Contreras during arbitration. It is hard to quantify that value.

Regarding reward, Contreras will get at least $10 million from Milwaukee this season. He will be fairly compensated in 2026. 

[Profbratsch]

Yes on Hoskins, no on Quintana...

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

13 hours ago, bm1090 said:

Agree he’d never sign a long deal here. But he played all year with a broken finger that needed a procedure right after the season. He was a vocal leader and led by example. Really would have been a great guy to reward, and it rubs me the wrong way a bit that they didn’t.

I agree with this completely. Rubs me the wrong way too. One downside to our organizational approach, just as a fan who likes to think the team treats the players as well as possible, is that we are pretty ruthless when it comes to arby. 

[Jopal78]

41 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

I agree with this completely. Rubs me the wrong way too. One downside to our organizational approach, just as a fan who likes to think the team treats the players as well as possible, is that we are pretty ruthless when it comes to arby. 

Why does it rub you the wrong way?  There is a finite amount of resources to be spent on Baseball Operations. $700-$900k saved might not gain them much on the major league roster but it could mean all the difference between signing an international  kid they like, and not. 
 

Secondly, it’s professional sports; there’s no loyalty either way. Teams don’t pay players more than they have to simply to be nice, and players don’t take less money than they could otherwise earn just to be cordial. 

[ClosetBrewerFan]

When Contreras signed the contract last year with the 2026 team option, few people thought the team would exercise it.  It was intended to limit his maximum salary for 2026.  For example, if Contreras had an MVP level season, they would exercise the option, but otherwise they were going to decline it.  That was my take on the contract at least.  I doubt Contreras is too surprised or upset about going to arby.

[SeaBass]

On 11/5/2025 at 5:36 AM, Frisbee Slider said:

Regarding reward, Contreras will get at least $10 million from Milwaukee this season. He will be fairly compensated in 2026. 

Uh, no, he won't be fairly compensated. HIs value would be so much higher on the open market but MLB's control structure prevents that. He will be compensated according to what that control dictates, not what he's actually worth.

[Frisbee Slider]

4 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

Uh, no, he won't be fairly compensated. HIs value would be so much higher on the open market but MLB's control structure prevents that. He will be compensated according to what that control dictates, not what he's actually worth.

You are right. At the same time, if the players collectively bargain for this system, then it is fair in that regard.

This is what players signed up for.
 

[SeaBass]

7 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

You are right. At the same time, if the players collectively bargain for this system, then it is fair in that regard.

This is what players signed up for.
 

It doesn't make it fair that in exchange for modifying that system MLB is demanding concessions elsewhere that are so much worse that they have no choice but to continue.

It is what it is, I still wouldn't describe it as fair.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

18 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Why does it rub you the wrong way?  There is a finite amount of resources to be spent on Baseball Operations. $700-$900k saved might not gain them much on the major league roster but it could mean all the difference between signing an international  kid they like, and not. 
 

Secondly, it’s professional sports; there’s no loyalty either way. Teams don’t pay players more than they have to simply to be nice, and players don’t take less money than they could otherwise earn just to be cordial. 

Because it would be nice if it weren't this way. 

Trust me, I understand the reality. But just as with health insurance or soft drinks or tech or cars, it would be nice if $$$$ weren't the determinative factor of everything all the time. 

The Brewers draw these lines very hard. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm not even that worked up about it. I'm just saying it has consequences, and, while many of them (long-term sustained success while staying young) are awesome, some aren't that great.

The whole point of advanced baseball analytics is to pay labor less than you think it's worth in terms of wins. Whatever we think about that (and I am generally a big fan of how the Brewers go about their business), it's got an exploitative element to it. 

[Team Canada]

42 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

The whole point of advanced baseball analytics is to pay labor less than you think it's worth in terms of wins

Or, you could also say the point of analytics is to accurately capture the true value of a player. That's not exploitative.

[Jopal78]

5 hours ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Because it would be nice if it weren't this way. 

Trust me, I understand the reality. But just as with health insurance or soft drinks or tech or cars, it would be nice if $$$$ weren't the determinative factor of everything all the time. 

The Brewers draw these lines very hard. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm not even that worked up about it. I'm just saying it has consequences, and, while many of them (long-term sustained success while staying young) are awesome, some aren't that great.

The whole point of advanced baseball analytics is to pay labor less than you think it's worth in terms of wins. Whatever we think about that (and I am generally a big fan of how the Brewers go about their business), it's got an exploitative element to it. 

Professional sports are exploitative by their nature. Cost controlling players for a certain number of seasons after they turn pro. Forcing amateur talent in the US to be in a draft with slotted values in order to turn pro. Solely in baseball, signing kids from the DR for pennies on the dollar of what they’d earn as a draftee stateside. Early contract extensions where the player is leaving tens if not hundreds of million dollars on the table for more up front.  

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

7 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

Professional sports are exploitative by their nature. Cost controlling players for a certain number of seasons after they turn pro. Forcing amateur talent in the US to be in a draft with slotted values in order to turn pro. Solely in baseball, signing kids from the DR for pennies on the dollar of what they’d earn as a draftee stateside. Early contract extensions where the player is leaving tens if not hundreds of million dollars on the table for more up front.  

Yes.

And I think it's okay to be conflicted about this? I suppose I don't really understand what you're trying to say. Like, being a sports fan is weird. And absurd. And fun. And sometimes kind of gross. The Brewers going to arb with Contreras to save a mil or two makes me feel conflicted and a little gross. Doesn't mean I don't understand it or that I'm naive. I think it's better to talk about the levels of exploitation, big and small, rather than rationalize them away or pretend they don't exist.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

12 hours ago, Team Canada said:

Or, you could also say the point of analytics is to accurately capture the true value of a player. That's not exploitative.

We just fundamentally disagree about this. The point of analytics is to find players the market undervalues. That is, the market thinks the player isn't good, but you know he is and so will pay him market rate knowing he's actually worth more. That's exploitative. 

Look, I'm not writing some anti-capitalist screed here. And William Contreras is not a coal miner. He's being extraordinarily well compensated. But the Brewers entire MO is to mostly operate by getting pre-arb and arb guys who they know will either produce more value than we pay for before they hit FA or will be tempted to sign very team-friendly longer term deals. There are exceptions. You could argue baseball requires the Brewers to operate this way to be any good. And the thread is right in that the CBA controls all of this. I'm not even saying it's WRONG. All I am saying is that it IS, on some level, exploitative, and we would be up in arms about it if a billionaire hospital owner was underpaying or nickel and dining a great union nurse. Same principle, but different emotional valences. I just prefer not to rationalize or dismiss the underlying similarity under the guise of "that's just how it is" or "the Brewers obviously just understand true value better than the rest of MLB." The truth is complicated, and exploitation is one part of it, as it is in many, many industries.