William Contreras Simplified His Stance and Looks Like Himself Again

On August 14 against the Dodgers, William Contreras went 0-for-4 to drop his OPS to .702, its lowest point of the season. It was Contreras's sixth straight game without a hit. Over his last 30, he had hit .153/.241/.243. His struggles had grown so severe that Pat Murphy moved him from the top half to the bottom half of the lineup.

When Contreras stepped up to the plate that night in Los Angeles, this was how his stance looked. He held his hands over his head and his outstretched arms well away from his body.

Contreras has always been a tinkerer in the box. He's long toyed with different versions of his stance throughout the season, even when he's going well. At times, it changes from day to day. This was one of several stances he deployed during his slump, and he had been using it since the Brewers' previous West Coast trip two weeks earlier. It wasn't helping him break out of his struggles. If anything, it was digging him further into his hole.

The screenshot above was taken seconds before a swing-and-miss on a 96-mph Yoshinobu Yamamoto sinker low and inside. It's a well-executed pitch that's hard to barrel, but Contreras is a strong athlete with above-average bat speed. When he's going well, he can pull his hands in on a down-and-in pitch and get the bat head far enough in front to make loud contact. That was harder to do with his hands starting so far from his body. By the time he pulled them in, he was late on that sinker and slashed over the top of it.

"Now you got to start early to get to that," Pat Murphy said. "Now guys [are pitching] him in, and your hands are way out here, you got to start early to get to that pitch. Now you're cutting across balls, missing balls, and you can't get there. It's just really hard to get to that spot."

The following night, Contreras returned to his old stance. His hands were still above his head, but he held his bat above his shoulder and closer to his body. In his first at-bat, he roped a 107-mph line drive to left for a single. His next time up, he hit his first home run since July 19.

That was the start of a torrid stretch for the Milwaukee backstop, who has hit .408/.456/.612 (191 wRC+) in his last 12 games. He's back to hitting the ball hard, posting a 51.5% hard-hit rate and average exit velocity of 91.9 mph in that span. By the time of the Brewers' series in New York last week, he was resting his bat on his shoulder, allowing him to pull that same low-and-in sinker for a 106-mph double.

On Saturday night, Contreras launched another inside sinker for a towering home run that gave the Brewers an early lead.

There are more tweaks going on here—Contreras has also started using a toe tap lately—but more than anything, his hands are allowing him to get to the ball directly and on time.

"He's now got himself a little more tight [between his hands and his body], and he can stay a little linear with his hand path," Murphy said. "He doesn't need that space in there. I think it's helped him."

Most of hitting is timing, so in some cases, less is often more. By becoming more compact with less pre-pitch movement, Contreras has simplified his setup. That's one of the tenets Murphy and the Brewers preach to their hitters: stop thinking too much and let your swing do the work.

His other warning is that what works in batting practice won't necessarily translate against live pitching. Contreras is known for his vigorous pregame hitting work, which is where Murphy said he fell into that pitfall while trying different hand positions. Raising his hands worked in that practice setting, but not in games.

"He goes out in pregame, and he hits it a long way. And it's timing that does that," Murphy said. "It doesn't matter where you have your hands if you time it up with the barrel. You don't get to do that when a guy's changing pitches and that type of thing."

This is the second straight season in which Contreras's offense has declined, but he remains one of the Brewers' most talented hitters. He has the raw power to change a game with one swing, and Milwaukee's lineup functions more efficiently when he's a spark plug near the top of the order. That's the version they've seen over the past couple of weeks, and the version they hope to get in October.

"He's learning, and he's been a good hitter his whole career, so he'll get back to being himself," Murphy said. "I think he's on track."

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