A William Contreras Contract Extension Should Be Brewers' Top Offseason Priority

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Brewers' most likely future Hall of Famer is Jackson Chourio. Their most valuable player in 2026 was the dominant Jacob Misiorowski. They have the top prospect in baseball, in Jesús Made, who looks likely to join a stout positional corps some time next summer. The heartbeat of the team, though—the one player who would be hardest to replace, not only this offseason but in recent memory—is catcher William Contreras.

The World Series MVP was so important to the team's success in all facets, and has been such a warrior for his squad since arriving in a trade over the offseason between 2022 and 2023, that even if the team had an elite catching prospect on hand, they'd have to take extra care before moving Contreras. Since Jeferson Quero is no longer that caliber of youngster, it's essential that the team explore retaining Contreras for the long term.

As the offseason begins, Contreras has just one season of team control remaining, whether the team elects to exercise its option on him for 2027 or to go through arbitration with him a final time. Next year will be his age-29 season; he's due to hit free agency ahead of his age-30 campaign. That puts Contreras in much the same position Phillies All-Star J.T. Realmuto was in after the 2020 season, when he hit free agency at the same age. Though it took a long staredown (one lengthened, perhaps, by the financial uncertainty many teams faced due to the COVID-shortened season and the associated loss of revenue), Realmuto and Philadelphia reunited on a five-year deal worth $115.5 million in guaranteed money. The deal was backloaded, so its actual value was slightly lower than the face value, but in essence, it paid Realmuto $23 million a year on a long-term contract, placing him at the top of the market for catchers.

That $23 million figure, in fact, is a bit of a magic number for catchers. When Joe Mauer was far and away the top backstop in the game and on the verge of free agency, over 15 years ago, he signed an eight-year, $184-million deal, which comes out to $23 million per year. In the back half of the extension Cal Raleigh signed with the Mariners last March, he'll earn $23 million per year, though that's obviously slightly below the market rate; it's part of a deal in which Raleigh surrendered some of his earning power in exchange for certainty. 

As the Brewers and Contreras ponder what's next, it's pretty easy to sketch out the terms of an extension the catcher would find reasonable. He wears No. 24—a uniform number that might someday be retired in his honor by the team, if he sticks around. The annual average value of a fair deal for Contreras is the easy part to figure: $24 million. That would make him the highest-paid catcher of all time, among those signing long-term deals.

There are two tougher questions to answer. The first, more obvious one is how long the deal would have to be. There's no way Contreras would accept a term of fewer than five years, which would make the base value of the deal $120 million. It's possible that he would demand six years, pushing the total starting point to $144 million and making his deal more clearly lucrative than Realmuto's. That would also surpass the total value of Will Smith's deal with the Dodgers, which pays him $140 million (though it's over 10 years). Biting the bullet and paying a catcher that well through age 35 might give the Brewers front office pause, given not only their perennial budget constraints but the dismal aging curve at that position for most players.

The other question is how to balance and tack on other considerations. While the Brewers are unlikely to give Contreras an eight-figure raise in 2027 when they don't have to, starting the deal a year early and replacing the team's final year of arbitration control would make a six-year term much more palatable. Alternatively, the team could try to entice Contreras to sign for five years and $120 million beginning in 2028 by adding a healthy signing bonus payable in 2027 and incentives or a vesting option for 2033. That could raise the star backstop's earning power to $150 million or more, without putting the Brewers at much more risk of having a bad contract on their hands. If Contreras wants an even bigger face value (say, $150 million over six years, for a $25-million average salary), the team is in position to afford that, but they'd need to figure out how to best do it—probably via deferrals that pay him a significant portion of his earnings after the contract is over. 

It's been six and a half years since the Brewers signed Christian Yelich to a long-term deal, which has become a bit expensive and unwieldy as Yelich has aged. However, Yelich has also had some great years on that contract, and on balance, his leadership and value as a face of the franchise more than make up for whatever production shortfalls have come from his injury problems and aging. The team is due to sign another Yelich-like deal, and the windfall they'll realize after winning the World Series makes that very feasible.

Contreras is the right player with whom to take that kind of risk. Brice Turang is an almost equally compelling one, but Contreras is the much harder player and person to replace. He'll also cost less than Turang would on a long-term deal. Rather than considering (even for a moment) trading their lion, the Brewers should put themselves in the William Contreras business for years to come. The rest of the offseason decisions will (practically) take care of themselves.

Image courtesy of Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

View full article

[sveumrules]

Agree with most everything here except that Turang would be more expensive to lock up than Contreras. Brice having three Arby's seasons left versus only one for William makes a pretty big difference.

On a theoretical six year deal for Brice that would run through his age 32 season I'd guess the salary figures on a potential extension would come in around say $10M, $13M, $16M, $27M, $27M, $27M which adds up to 6/$120M. Throw another year at $27M on there and it gets to 7/$147M. Same general price range as hypothesized for William in the article, but lower AAV with the extra year on each iteration.

Think one of the more interesting angles of the offseason is that any potential Made extension probably needs to be in the neighborhood of $140M to $150M like the McGonigle / Griffin extensions too.

Would imagine the agents for Brice and William would want any extension their already established, star level clients potentially sign (coming off a WS win) to be for more money than a teenager yet to debut.

Maybe something like...Made (9/$145M), Turang (7/$150M), Contreras (6/$150M).

I'd also be more inclined to go year to year with Brice considering Jesus, Pena, and the Super Ebel Bros are in the system as potential replacements over the next couple two tree years versus the pipeline being mostly dry behind Bazooka Bill with all of the injury issues Quero and Dinges have dealt with.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I am not against a Contreras extension, but purely as an emotional decision. I do not believe it's a good baseball decision.

And it's okay to sometimes make emotional decisions. This is a spectator sport, and the fan base's opinion matters.

[Trax]

Would love a Contreras extension, but only ones that makes sense.  The new CBA will have impact with this decision as well.   The amount needed to sign him must be weighed against what we can receive in return trade wise.   If contracts remain guaranteed as they are now I would be very careful here.  Sometimes the player must be willing to simply take less to stay in an organization.  At 20 million a year in a multiple year contract I would think they could take that into consideration..  

In a new CBA hopefully the guaranteed money as it is now would go away to an extent.  Hopefully we will have a cap floor and ceiling or at least increased revenue sharing with major penalties for over spending.  That must change first.

[long ball]

As MT alluded to, this would have to be for everything that doesn’t show up in the spreadsheet and the lack of an available replacement.
 

Personally, I’d just take him to free agency. Take the Adames route. 

[Branyanisthegoat]

I have been on the extend Contreras bandwagon for a long time, his personality will allow him to overcome alot of the pitfalls associated with signing players long term, even at catcher.

That said, if the Brewers dont and even if they trade him, I hope the fanbsse doesnt go back to the old Mark A is cheap or Arnold doesnt care about winning. This front office has more than earned some grace. 

[gregmag]

Didn’t we feel pretty much the same way about Adames that we feel about Contreras — productive player, irreplaceable leader?  We came through that okay. 

Two things make me like the idea of extending William: the very real possibility that he’s a world-historic postseason assassin, and the almost mystical reverence the pitchers have for him. Those are two big pluses. 

Everything else for me is a minus. Catchers age horribly. He’s a good but very streaky offensive player who has never been great and hasn’t improved. His defense mostly grades out as mediocre. His game-calling is hard to defend. He’s gotten good at throwing out base-stealers, but not so good that it overcomes his flaws.

It’s true that we don’t have an obvious replacement in house right now. But good teams find guys. We found William Contreras. I would not trade him this winter. Play out his team control like we did with Adames. That gives us another year of runway to work on replacing him.

[keephopealive]

Great article, Matthew.  My own comment turned into a mini-article. Lol. 

If you asked us in early August, no one would say extend because it looked like William was on a two year, maybe even 3 year, decline.  Then the resurgence and magical October happened.  It's important to keep our heads about this though. 

• We have a shot at another WS next year, and with a young rotation, few older everyday players, and lots of talent coming, probably contenders even beyond. Catcher is our one weak spot where the cupboard is somewhat bare.  That increases Contreras value. 
• The fact that Contreras is clearly a leader of the team (emotionally, managing the young staff, etc) also add particular value now, where we couldn't just sign an equivalent WAR guy off the street and expect that same contribution. 
• Contreras has more wear and tear than the typical catcher.  He plays a ton of games, and has been catching since he was signed as a 17-year old, probably even before. 
• His brother Willson is probably the most informative aging profile, but Willson moved to C from 3B when he was 20 I think, and had the COVID break.  Willson remained productive as a C through his age 32 season, probably even improving on a per game/inning basis, though lowering his workload there over time.  He's remained productive as a 1B through his age 34 season.  William is better than Willson, though Willson showed a cleaner trajectory of improvement over time, whereas William's bat looked like it was regressing (as was his framing) until the end of the season. 
• William has averaged about 4 WAR the past three seasons (although it's been declining). My guess is that William continues to average roughly 3.5-4 WAR over the next four seasons, and then 2-2.5 WAR after that for the next two seasons after moving away from catching. He'd have role maybe something like Yeli, hopefully more last year than this year.  
• It turns out that, historically at least, that the cost for WAR is lower among catchers.  I suspect that some of that is because teams project wear and tear, and so much of the value of catchers is defensive value.  But another part is that teams tend to be a bit stupid. They overpay for closers for example and 1B, and underpay 2B, which tells me they still go for flashy stats over things like defense and speed.  Anyway, I think Matthew's 24 number is about right.
• That means that we'll get the intangibles for free. Now we have to be sure that those intangibles are real, and not just part of WS euphoria, e.g., the pitbull personality doesn't wear on people when he or the team is not performing at its best.
• But I think I'd go for the front-loaded contract with the signing bonus. Pay him big money, when everyone is in WS euphoria. We can extend Turang if we wish as Yeli comes off the books, and Miz or Chourio as Contreras comes off the books. If the owners get any sort of a cap with anything like Bird rights, I don't think signing/extending those guys is absolutely out of the question.  
• As a fan, I wouldn't want to do the deferral.  A lot can happen to a small market franchise in 1982, we were (almost) top of the world. Ten years later, we came up short, but lost Molitor because we couldn't/wouldn't pay. 4 years later than that, we were at risk of losing the team if taxpayers didn't pony up for Miller Park.  6 years later than that, we had a new park and were in a new league.  20 years after that we're having to pony up more money for renovations so the team doesn't leave.  I just don't want to get into a situation where whoever take control from Attanasio has a complaint about cash flow. 

[Frisbee Slider]

Does Contreras make the rest of the team, especially the pitching staff, meaningfully better to the point that stats don’t capture all of his value?

I generally discount intangibles like the clubhouse presence of Willy Adames. Maybe Contreras is different, though.

 

[keephopealive]

4 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Does Contreras make the rest of the team, especially the pitching staff, meaningfully better to the point that stats don’t capture all of his value?

I generally discount intangibles like the clubhouse presence of Willy Adames. Maybe Contreras is different, though.

 

Yeah, that is what I meant when I said, he adds particular value now.  We still have a really young pitching staff... whether Henderson, Harrison, Priester, Gasser, Crow, Sproat, Drohan, Hardin, no one but Mis will have more than a year's experience in next year's rotation, and Mis himself is just a pup still.  I think Contreras keeps those guys together. 

[tmwiese55]

Id say a thing to note that is a bit different than Adames is the years on contract.  He ended up at 7 but going into that there was the chance of some crazy 8-10 year thing that had been getting handed out all over at the time. 

In Contreras's case, everyone knows he's a C so chances are if he hits FA next offseason the most he's getting is 5 years.  If we could get him for 5 total (buying out next year) right now I think we'd do it, that potential 6th year could be the sticking point though.   But the main thing I meant to point out is that in a deal like that we're all generally confident that the first two years will be fine (barring horrible injury luck like shoulder/ACL etc), most likely even 3.  So the risk is really just twooverpaid years at the end, 3 if you get talked into doing the 6th year. That's not that tough of a pill to swallow, especially since Yeli will be gone then. Whereas Adames and contracts that long you're possibly looking at 4-5 years of it as awful, just as SF is doing right now.