William Contreras is Stuck in a Two-Year Slump. The Brewers Need More.

William Contreras has looked like a different hitter this season. After averaging 20 home runs across his first two years in Milwaukee and playing through a broken finger in 2025, the expectation was that offseason surgery would restore his power. Instead, the opposite has happened. The underlying data suggests he hasn't just been less productive; he's become a different kind of hitter.

You can see below the Savant percentiles comparison for Contreras across the last three years; it's telling in this regard. Strikeout rates were never a problem for him, even when he was swinging and missing. Pitchers also appear more willing to challenge him in the zone, which has coincided with the lowest walk rate of his Brewers career. So what, exactly, has gone wrong here to change his profile so dramatically?

Before diving into the swing changes, it's worth asking whether fatigue could be playing a role. The first thing, which we can't rule out, is injury, Contreras showed just last year that he'll play through almost anything with nary a peep, and catchers take a beating behind the plate. The wear and tear at that position is unique, but we can say that, if there was an injury, there is absolutely no reason not to see Gary Sánchez behind the plate more regularly.

Of the 111 games the Brewers have played at the time of this writing, Contreras has started 83 behind the plate, which would project up to around 121 starts by the end of the year. That's seven fewer than 2025, but it would constitute a large workload for a catcher they want to be firing on all cylinders in October, not struggling to the finish line.

Is Contreras Still Swinging Fast?
Let's take a look at the bat-tracking data. His bat speed distribution shows us how often Contreras is swinging the bat at different speeds, where the higher the arc, the more often he swings in that range. Here is his distribution of swings since 2023:

This is the biggest measure of intent we can see, and there are some giveaways that Contreras is being less aggressive this year than he was in 2024. The arc of 2025-26 is peaking earlier, with his most common swing averaging around 74 mph rather than 75 mph in bat speed. What's really telling, however, is on the right-hand side of this graph. Notice how the orange and blue lines for 2023 and 2024 show a number of swings at 82+ mph, but there are almost none in that range between the last two seasons. Injury may account for some of that, but there's more to this;

Above is another breakdown, this time of Contreras's stance and point of impact. This is where we're seeing a big change. In 2023 and 2024, Contreras's stance was slightly more open/neutral, impacting the ball a little further back overall (which did engender him to a few more ground balls than is ideal). The MLB average stance set-up is 11° open, so Contreras was still more "closed" than your average player. The last two years, however, he's adopted an even more closed stance.

In theory, a more closed stance should encourage a hitter to stay on the ball longer and use the opposite field more often. That was true for stretches of 2025. However, his contact point relative to his center of mass is now almost identical to what it was with the more open stance, creating a mechanical mismatch.

Let's compare two home runs from those years to see the stance difference even into his "A" swing:

Above is a swing from earlier this year. Notice how Contreras's feet are angled more toward the opposite field, almost shutting off the pull side. He opens up slightly after his toe tap, but while he middled this swing, it's an awkward position to pull the ball from. Now see the swing below (in case you ever needed to see what "letting it rip" looks like), which is from 2024:

Contreras uses a leg kick rather than a toe tap here, starting with his feet closer together and exploding into the ball. At contact, his feet are 10-15° open, directed toward left field rather than right field. This is a swing where he was over 82 mph in bat speed, and it showed. One might question why someone whose swing was so successful would have remodeled it quite so extensively, and that perhaps lends itself to the cerebral nature of the man, which we'll come to in a bit.

I'm not suggesting Contreras can't hit home runs with 74 mph of bat speed. That's plenty for a hitter, but I do think it shows a lack of intent versus previous seasons. He's trying to be more of a hitter than a slugger, especially in favourable counts wherein he should be able to unload. Most importantly, however, there seems to be a discrepancy in his set-up compared to his swing, and closing off his stance means that when he does pull the ball in the air, something he's doing more of this season, he's not doing it with the authority we're used to. 

He has managed to get the ground balls under control, reducing it from 55% of balls in play coming on the ground in 2024 to 42% in 2026. That's great, but he's lost the authority with which he traditionally hit balls, especially over the last month or two. Contreras is known for, at times, overthinking his approach behind the plate as a catcher, and he seems to be very cerebral in the box, too. We've seen him set up with different stances in the same at-bat in the past, playing a game of 4D chess with a pitcher. I can't say if that's right or wrong, but it is unique, and can make it difficult to be consistent in your swing.

Whether it's lingering physical limitations, accumulated fatigue, or an intentional mechanical adjustment, Contreras doesn't look like the hitter he was in 2023 or 2024. The encouraging part is that the underlying bat speed remains good enough to rediscover that version of himself. The Brewers just need him to do it before October. The catcher is too important to their lineup, and perhaps the freedom to let the bat eat every once in a while could loosen the mental shackles, too.

Can he find a way to tap into those elite exit velocities while keeping the ball in the air? Or is this a pick-your-poison situation? That, I can't answer, but if given a choice, I would take the latter. That power is far more consequential to this Brewers lineup, as constructed, than any bat-to-ball improvement that sacrifices said power.

What have you thought of William Contreras's output lately? Do you think this is just a blip on the radar? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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