William Contreras is Already Baseball's Best Offensive Catcher, But He's Still Leaving Production on the Table

Since the Brewers acquired him two offseasons ago, William Contreras has authored a compelling case as one of baseball’s top catchers, if not the best. Since the start of the 2023 season, the 27-year-old’s 128 wRC+ leads all qualified backstops. He’s also been a workhorse, catching the fifth-most innings during that span. Contreras leads the position in fWAR (11.2) and ranked second in WARP (9.8), two of the leading metrics for estimating a catcher’s all-around value.

As valuable as he’s been, though, Contreras is still underperforming his physical capabilities, especially in the batter’s box. Already a strong hitter, he has the tools to be among the best at any position and a potent power threat.

Contreras swings hard, posting an average swing speed in the 86th percentile of hitters in 2024. He hits the ball hard, finishing in the 91st and 94th percentiles in hard-hit rate and average exit velocity, respectively. However, Contreras’s production on those batted balls lags behind much of the company he keeps.

Most players who hit this many screamers in 2024 boasted a wOBA on contact near or exceeding .450. Contreras finished the year with a .412 wOBAcon – an impressive mark compared to the league average, but well behind most hitters in his exit velocity stratosphere. Several hitters who generated less velocity off the bat were vastly more productive with their contact.

That’s because Contreras pounds the ball into the ground more than nearly any regular in baseball, let alone those who hit it this forcefully. His 54% ground-ball rate last year was the third-highest among qualified hitters. According to Statcast, 39.2% of his contact was “topped,” or hit at a launch angle below or equal to zero degrees. That was the sixth-highest rate in the sport, well above players with comparable average exit velocities.

While Contreras has hit for decent power as a Brewer, launching 40 home runs and adding 75 doubles, hitting so many rockets into the dirt is placing unnecessary limits on his output. If left unaddressed, his home run output will more likely decrease than increase.

Over the last two seasons, only two hitters have topped more batted balls with an exit velocity of at least 100 mph than Contreras. He’s posted a .362 wOBA on those grounders, outpacing a .239 xwOBA by punching many of them through the hole to the opposite field. However, that output is probably not replicable to that extent, even if it’s a real skill Contreras possesses. More importantly, it pales in comparison to his .935 wOBA and .941 xwOBA on batted balls with a triple-digit exit velocity and positive launch angle.

For a more practical illustration of the power Contreras is leaving on the table and how reasonably attainable it is, let’s compare him to a similar hitter. As a speedy shortstop who hits from the left side with even greater bat speed than Contreras, Baltimore Orioles superstar Gunnar Henderson is not a perfect equivalent. However, he’s plotted directly above Contreras on the first graph.

The two are nearly identical in how hard they hit the ball, their tendencies to spray it across the field instead of consistently pulling it, and how often they make contact. Despite these shared traits, Henderson posted a significantly higher xwOBAcon and smashed 37 home runs, 14 more than the Milwaukee backstop.

Henderson’s launch angle was only three degrees higher, and still well below the league average of 13.3 degrees. It’s a meaningful difference from where Contreras is now, but getting there would not require radically reshaping his identity as a hitter. Making incremental improvements could have massive results.

Pictured below is Contreras’s launch angle distribution from last season, color-coded by which kind of contact was the most productive. He spent too much time living in the -5-to-10-degree range, where his production was fine but unremarkable.

Compare that to Henderson, who is hardly a launch-heavy hitter but spent more time hitting high line drives and low fly balls, conducive to much greater power output.

Both players hit most of their home runs with a launch angle between 25 and 30 degrees. Henderson’s contact quality in that range was a bit better than Contreras’s, but the latter still hits those fly balls loudly enough for similarly impactful results. By elevating just a bit more, Contreras should easily reach 30 home runs and approach a 150 wRC+. That would be a massive boost for an offense that will almost certainly have to replace most of Willy Adames’s power in-house.

The good news, of course, is that it might already be happening. Contreras stepped up (and swung up, as it were) when Christian Yelich went down for the season in late July. Starting the day after Yelich's last game of the year, he batted .275/.394/.530 in 241 plate appearances to finish the season, good for a 153 wRC+. He swatted 12 home runs in that span. Even then, though, his launch angle only crept up to 8°, and he topped the ball at a similar rate. Another tiny step forward is possible, and it would beget a giant leap in production.

The Brewers have an untapped offensive monster near the top of their lineup, in their star catcher. Coaxing even a modest increase in launch from Contreras should be among the chief priorities for a restructured hitting staff headed by recently-promoted Al Leboeuf. It could emerge as a significant storyline early in the 2025 season.