Diving Into William Contreras' Recent Struggles at the Plate

William Contreras was the Brewers’ best and most available hitter through (roughly) the first two months of the season. Through May 24, Contreras had played in all 50 of his team’s games, while posting a gaudy .337/.412/.538 line. His 167 wRC+ led qualified catchers and ranked ninth among qualified hitters.

Contreras has since fallen on rough times, and those struggles have grown from a bump in the road to a prolonged slump. Since May 25, he’s slashed .214/.235/.277 in 115 plate appearances, spanning 26 games. His season line now stands at .293/.353/.444 (126 wRC+), a 153-point drop in OPS.

Some of the downturn was due to statistically probable regression. No matter how excellent his at-bats and ability to guide the ball to all fields were, Contreras was never going to sustain the .396 BABIP he managed during the former stretch. Most of the dropoff, however, stems from worse swings and poor swing decisions.

“I think he’ll come out of it very soon,” Pat Murphy said before Monday’s series opener against the Texas Rangers, a game in which Contreras went 1-for-4 with a double. “I think his early success has made his standards so high for himself that he’s gotten into a few bad habits, and [he’s] not seeing the ball as well as he could.”

Hitting a baseball is among the most challenging feats in sports, and consistent results in that area are difficult to come by. One way to stay as consistent as possible is for a hitter to swing according to the pitches the opposition gives him. Murphy speaks of it frequently as a “pillar” of reliable offense.

Contreras excelled on that front to open the year. During his hot stretch, he chased pitches outside the strike zone at a 23.4% rate that ranked in the 76th percentile of hitters and walked at an 11% clip. Since his slump began, his chase rate has inflated to 30.3%, which ranks in the 41st percentile. His walk rate has plummeted to 2.6%.

There has been no discernible shift in how pitchers are attacking Contreras. Rather, he’s getting himself out, by offering at pitches he shouldn’t be and making suboptimal contact on balls that are typically in his wheelhouse.

Contreras has always been a heavy ground-ball hitter who maximizes damage on line drives and fly balls. He has also found success by utilizing multiple versions of his stance and swing based on game situations and how he is being pitched.

All of those attributes have been lacking during this stretch. Contreras is still putting the ball in play at roughly the same rate as before, but those balls in play are mostly pull-side rollovers that are missing the barrel.

Contreras is running a 66.3% ground ball rate during his slump, after posting a more manageable 49.7% clip during his first 50 games. His pull rate on batted balls has jumped from 35.7% to 42.7%, and his opposite field rate has dipped from 31.2% to 25.8%.

The recent launch of Statcast bat-tracking data allows for a more quantitative breakdown of Contreras’s swing during the two stretches.

The good news is that Contreras has not lost any bat speed; his average swing speed has held steady at about 75 mph between the two spans, which ranks near the top of baseball. His fast swing rate has been similarly consistent.

The core of the issue appears to be more of an intangible: Contreras’ comfort level at the plate.

It’s highly unlikely that Contreras intentionally changed a highly-successful approach. No hitter strives to pull more balls on the ground. However, syncing the body with the mind can be one of the more challenging aspects of hitting, and Contreras seems to be fighting that battle.

Consider these two swings Contreras put on fastballs in the low-and-away region of the zone roughly two months apart. The first is a base hit from Apr. 5. Contreras stays closed on a 97-mph sinker and shoots a hard grounder to the right side.

The next clip is from Jun. 12. Contreras gets a first-pitch sinker that barely clips the bottom of the zone. Swinging at this pitch is a questionable decision from the get-go, and the jumpy hack taken by Contreras makes matters worse. Instead of waiting for the ball to get to him, Contreras lunges at it, opens up sooner, and taps it straight into the ground.

“[He’s] trying to create results instead of meeting the game halfway,” Murphy posited as an explanation for his catcher’s recent struggles. Both the visual and statistical evidence support that evaluation.

While the ultimate onus falls on Contreras to produce, the Brewers also bear the responsibility of putting him in a position to succeed. That could include more careful workload management.

Contreras started in each of the team’s first 64 games, before retreating to the bench. He received a full day off on Sunday, and Murphy acknowledged that his offensive woes were a factor in the decision.

Whether it requires more rest or another kind of intervention to initiate a mental reset, the Brewers could use more of the production they’re accustomed to seeing from their catcher. It starts with feeling more laid-back in the box. His opposite-field double on Monday night was a positive sign.