Tag Archives: Willson Contreras

December 22, 2025

Two Ls for First

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The Red Sox acquired Willson Contreras from the Cardinals to play first base.

The Boston Red Sox acquired first baseman Willson Contreras in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals, the second big deal between the teams this winter as the Cardinals rebuild and the Red Sox aim to stay competitive in the cutthroat American League East division.

Contreras, 33, has been one of the steadiest right-handed hitters in baseball since his debut and will bring his well-above-average glove to a position Boston had spent the offseason trying to fill. The Red Sox will receive $8 million to cover the remaining $42.5 million on the three-time All-Star’s contract and sent right-hander Hunter Dobbins and right-handed pitching prospects Yhoiker Fajardo and Blake Aita to the Cardinals.

ESPN.com

Contreras posted very consistent fWARs in his career, with six of his seasons coming in between 2.4 and 2.8 fWAR, overall averaging 2.4 fWAR per season. Most of that comes from his offense, as he posted negative defensive numbers most seasons, including 2025.

I don’t quite see the advantage of this deal compared to sticking with the oft injured Triston Casas. Musings Marcels pegs Cacas at .245/.338/.445 in 2026, Contreras at .254/.345/.443, Cacas at a much lower price tag. If the two wind up platooning, The Red Sox gave up some young talent for a part-time first baseman.

It does look like Contreras might pepper the way at Fenway. Baseball Savant projects Contreras’ hits onto Fenway Park, and it does look like he’ll give the wall a beating.

August 26, 2025

Contra Protocol

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Willson Contreras of the Cardinals pulled a six-game suspension from MLB after his actions toward an umpire after an ejection Monday night:

Contreras was ejected during the bottom of the seventh inning of the Cardinals’ 7-6 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday night after he was called out on strikes. Contreras felt that an 0-2 pitch from Pirates pitcher Yohan Ramirez missed low, and he began jawing at home plate umpire Derek Thomas as he made his way to the dugout.

After he was ejected, Contreras needed to be restrained from going after Thomas. Contreras then threw a bat at one of his own coaches as his was being escorted off the field. He also launched a bucket of gum from the dugout onto the field before he finally headed to the clubhouse.

Yardbarker.com

It’s important to remember that one of the things that made the American League popular and in it’s early years was an insistence on clean play, including not intimidating umpires. The success of the AL caused the NL to adopt the same discipline, likely saving that league. Nothing has changed in that regard.

February 20, 2025

Changes, St. Louis Cardinals

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The Cardinals did not bring in any players from outside the organization over the winter to add to their active roster. They replaced Paul Goldschmidt by moving Willson Contreras to first base and Ivan Herrera to catcher. Note that Herrera gets on base at a very good clip, something Goldschmidt did not do last year, so this could be a nice positive for the team.

I suspect that bringing in no one from outside the organization is quite rare. There is talk of a Nolan Arenado trade. We’ll see if that happens before the start of the regular season.

November 7, 2024

Internal Replacement

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Cardinals decided to replace free agent first baseman Paul Goldschmidt with their catcher, Willson Contreras. GM John Mozeliak talked about the move:

Mozeliak pointed to injuries as one deciding factor for the move. Contreras missed time this past season with a broken arm after getting hit by a swing from New York Mets designated hitter J.D. Martinez.

It’s also not uncommon for aging catchers to add or move to another position to preserve themselves after taking a beating behind the plate for so long. Contreras hit 15 home runs while compiling an .842 OPS in 2024, but he played in only 84 games because of the broken arm.

ESPN.com

Ivan Herrera likely becomes the first string catcher. Contreras and Herrera sat atop the Cardinals offense in 2024, so this move should improve the team offensively.

Goldschmidt, at seasonal age 36 saw his production fall off. Still it was a good trade and contract extension for St. Louis. Goldschmidt generated 20 fWAR for St. Louis for $145 million. That works out to $7.3 million per war, a low rate for a productive hitter.

August 10, 2024

Best Batter Today

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The top five in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings stay the same after Friday’s games. Rain washed out the Rangers and Yankees Friday night, and Aaron Judge and Juan Soto of the Yankees hold first and third place respectively. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.of the Blue Jays collected two hits in a 3-1 win over the Athletics to hold second place. Bobby Witt Jr.of the Royals took and 0 for 4 with a walk in an 8-5 Cardinals victory for fourth place. Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies went 0 for 4 in a 3-2 Diamondbacks win and stays in fifth place.

In the Cardinals win, Willson Contreras of St. Louis produced the best game score of the day, an 85. He went three for four with a walk and two home runs, driving in half of the Cardinals runs. Contreras only played 72 games due to injury, but his .261/.381/.494 slash line is one of his best since 2019. His OBP would be the highest in a single season in his career.

June 1, 2024

Putting Catchers at Risk

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This post caught my eye last week:

So part of framing isn’t just pulling the ball into the strike zone, but catching it closer to the plate so the umpire doesn’t see as much of a drop. This immediately made me think of Willson Contreras’s injury.

Now, a minor league catcher is in the hospital after getting hit in the head with a backswing:

Henry was hit in the back of the head by the swing from Syracuse Mets third baseman Pablo Reyes in the seventh inning. He immediately went to the ground upon contact and athletic trainers tended to him.

Officials decided not to continue the game after the injury.

The Bisons said later in the night that Henry was “alert and appropriately responsive” at an area hospital. They called the injury a “scary incident.”

ESPN.com

Batters erase the back line of the batter’s box so they can stand as far behind the plate as possible to give themselves more time to recognize and hit very fasts pitches. Now catcher are creeping closer to the plate to try to get an edge in called strikes. The results at first were more catcher interference calls, and now major injuries.

This has to stop. I always thought pitch framing was a form of cheating, and now that cheating is causing physical harm.

I have a suggestion. Home plate umpires should start wearing small video cameras capable of recording footage that could be used in virtual reality headsets. Once a library is built up, the night before a game behind home plate, the umpire trains on the pitcher/catcher combination for the next game. He sees a pitch, calls a ball or strike, and the VR corrects him when needed. This way, the umpire learns how catchers fool try to fool him. He also learns what the pitcher throws, so he is better at recognizing from that point of view.

Being fooled by pitch framing is a pattern recognition problem. The problem can be trained away, and then catchers can go back to catching at a distance, and CI calls can once again be very rare.

August 12, 2023

Best Batter Today

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The top five in the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings did not change due to Friday’s games. Dodgers Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts remain first and fifth respectively. Betts went two for three with a double and a walk in the 6-1 win over the Rockies, while Freeman posted a one for four night.

Braves Matt Olson and Ronald Acuna Jr.rank two and three respectively. Oslon singled and walked, while Acuna drew a walk in the 7-0 defeat of the Mets.

Shohei Ohtani of the Angels ranks fourth after a one for four game in an 11-3 Houston win. In that same game, Jon Singleton of the Astros posted a game score of 85, tying him for the best game score of the day. He went three for four with two home runs and a walk, his first three hits since being acquired by the Astros. Willson Contreras of the Cardinals also posted a game score of 85. He went three for three with a double, home run, and walk, but the Royals take the slugfest 12-8.

May 19, 2023

Evolving Rules

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MLB issued a clarification of the batter set rule in regards to the pitch timer in the wake of Willson Contreras causing two quick-pitch calls against Kenley Jansen.

From now on, when a batter gets into a hitting position and engages with the pitcher, with one or both feet out of the box, he’ll be warned and then assessed a strike on subsequent violations, according to the memo.

Chronic offenders will be subject to further discipline by the commissioner’s office. Teams were informed in early March that pitchers were prohibited from quick pitching, while this clarification restricts batters from inducing such action.

Pitchers must continue to be aware of the position of the batter and identify when he is “appropriately” in the batter’s box and alert to the pitcher before the pitcher begins the windup or comes set, according to the memo.

ESPN.com

I have been rather impressed with MLB quickly adjusting to players attempting to game the pitch-clock rule. The spirit of the rule is to speed the game along, not to invent ways to induce the other player to do something wrong.

May 19, 2023

Best Batter Today

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The small number of games on Thursday stirred up the top five of the Baseball Musings Batter Rankings. Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers now ranks first after a going two for five with a triple and a home run in a 16-8 slugfest won by the Cardinals. In the same game, Nolan Gorman of the Cardinals produced the highest game score of the day, a 77. He produced, three hits, two of them home runs as the Cardinals knocked out seven dingers in all. Willson Contreras also hit two for St. Louis.

Ronald Acuna of the Braves, Yordan Alvarez of the Astros, and Juan Soto of the Padres rank two, three, and four respectively. All were idle on Thursday.

Aaron Judge of the Yankees moved into fifth place after a two for four with a double and a home run in a 4-2 win over the Blue Jays. Judge is now slugging .612 on the season. The Yankees are 22-14, .611 when Judge appears in a game, 4-6 without him.

May 6, 2023

Contreras’s Defense

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It would appear the Cardinals are not happy with Willson Contreras‘s pitch framing, even though they are not saying that out loud. They are going to be using him as DH and in the outfield over the next couple of weeks. He hurt his ankle, but:

Obviously, if Contreras’ ankle were an issue, he wouldn’t be asked to patrol the outfield grass. He’s done so in the past, albeit in limited doses. For his career, he’s logged 236 defensive innings at the outfield corners, with most of that coming in left. St. Louis this season has struggled to get good production from left, and compounding matters is that Tyler O’Neill is currently on the injured list with a lower back strain. 

So, yes, there’s need, but there’s cause to believe that Contreras’ defensive faculties — or at least internal perceptions of them — may also be playing a role. Right now, Statcast rates Contreras as a below-average pitch-framer this season (35th percentile and trending downward in recent games). As well, the struggles of Cardinal pitchers this season when in two-strike counts (they’ve managed to allow 20 two-strike home runs already in 2023) and the fact that they’ve fared better with Knizner as the battery mate, at least from an ERA standpoint, aren’t helping. 

MSN.com

Here’s another reason to welcome our robot pitch umpires. Contreras’s pitch framing wouldn’t matter, and his big bat would be more valuable at catcher.

December 7, 2022

Honest Value

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Michael Baumann at FanGraphs reviews the Willson Contreras contract with the Cardinals. He’ll receive 87.5 million over five seasons. Baumann notes the Cardinals can use the offense at the position, and there might a gain in defensive value when catchers can no longer cheat on getting strikes called:

Right now, catchers can win (or lose, in Contreras’ case) tens of runs per year by framing, which is the art of fooling flesh-and-blood umpires into thinking balls are strikes. If in the next few years we transition from meat-based umps to a system of sensors, that makes Contreras maybe as much as a full win better relative to his more defense-focused contemporaries. All of this is conjecture, but it’s something to consider when judging catchers out into the middle of this decade.

FanGraphs.com

For now, having another big bat behind the sluggers at the top of the order should be a big improvement for St. Louis.

June 18, 2022

Double Contrerases

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The catching brothers, Willson Contreras of the Cubs and William Contreras of the Braves both produced good days at the plate on Saturday. William posted a two for four day with a double. Willson did a bit better, three for five with a double, a run, and an RBI. That helped the Cubs to a 6-3 win.

The two hit well so far in 2022, both with high OBP and slugging percentages. It must be a fun family competition.

March 16, 2021

Team Offense, Chicago Cubs

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The 2021 series on team offense continues with the the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs finished twentieth in the majors and tenth in the National League in 2020 with 4.42 runs scored per game.

I am using RotoChamp as a source of default lineups. That David Ross order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections. For the pitchers, I used the actual stats for the Cubs from 2017 through 2020. That information produces the following results (Runs per game):

  • Best lineup: 4.84
  • Probable lineup: 4.62
  • Worst lineup: 4.25
  • Regressed lineup: 4.35

The only place the default lineup agrees with the LAT is in the sixth slot, where both like Javier Baez. Baez projects to a low OBP with a high slugging percentage, a batter who is better at finishing an offensive sequence than starting one. Baez is there to get the big two-out hit than can score a man from first.

The disagreements are not all that great. The LAT prefers Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant setting the table, but occasionally puts Ian Happ or Wilson Contreras second. Joc Pederson bats fourth in the LAT instead of fifth. Both lineups see Nico Hoerner as a bottom of the order hitter.

There is room for improvement here. Ross leave 0.2 runs per game on the table. That’s three wins over a season. The NL Central looks like a weak division, which means it might end up very tight, and the division winner might not get to 90 wins. Those three wins could make a big difference, as the wild card team is unlikely to come from this division.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

Previous posts in this series:

July 17, 2018 April 23, 2018

Different Treatment

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Rick Morrissey in the Chicago Sun-Times wonders why the catcher who called out Jake Arrieta was traded, but the one who called out Yu Darvish was praised:

And then there’s this: Who is Contreras, in his second full season as a big-league starter, to point out publicly what Darvish is doing wrong? Who is he to tell Darvish publicly how things work in the big leagues? I see Darvish’s four All-Star selections; I don’t see any for Contreras. And why give opponents any ammunition about what ails Darvish?

Fans and media types immediately lauded Contreras for calling out Darvish.

He was asserting himself as a team leader! they raved.

He was lighting a fire under his pitcher! they gushed.

He said what needed to be said! they crowed.

You know, sort of like Miguel Montero did with Arrieta last season, right before the Cubs traded him for being too outspoken.

Montero didn’t like that the Nationals had stolen seven bases in a game, and he let reporters know afterward that Arrieta’s slow delivery was the cause.

‘‘It really sucked because the stolen bases go to me, and when you really look at it, the pitcher doesn’t give me any time,’’ he said. ‘‘Simple as that.’’

The Cubs traded him to the Blue Jays soon after because, they said, they were trying to improve the clubhouse culture. In other words, Montero was selfish. Perhaps, but he was also correct in his assessment of Arrieta’s slow delivery, which the pitcher later acknowledged.

It’s a good question. I assume it was that Arrieta had already become a Cubs hero, and Darvish has yet to reach that level.

October 18, 2017

Where There’s a Willson, There’s a Way

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Willson Contreras gets the first hit for the Cubs, smacking it off the video board for a 1-0 Cubs lead in the bottom of the second. All five Cubs runs in the series came on solo home runs against the Dodgers.

Update: Javier Baez, one out later, hits a home run down the leftfield line to put the Cubs up 2-0 on the Dodgers.

August 9, 2017

Losing Contreras

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The Cubs may lose catcher Wilson Contreras to a hamstring injury:

No team wants to lose their starting catcher, and that’s especially the case with the Cubs and Contreras. On the season, the 25-year-old is batting .274/.342/.519 in 102 games, which is obviously excellent production for someone who mans a premium position. Contreras has also been especially hot in recent weeks, as he entered Wednesday when an OPS of more than 1.100 in the second half.

Luckily the added Alex Avila, who is doing an even better job this season of getting on base.

April 2, 2017

Contrerasian

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Willson Contreras helps the Cubs pick up where they left off in 2017. Trailing the Cardinals 3-0 in the top of the ninth, Conteras hits a three-run homer to tie the game. It was the first hit in the game with runners in scoring position, as the teams were a combined 0 for 14 before the home run. Wilson turns out the be the contrarian, and gets the clutch hit.

Randal Grichuk hit a two-run homer in the eighth to extend what had been a 1-0 St. Louis lead since the bottom of the third. The games goes to the bottom of the ninth tied at three.

Update: Grichuk drives in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth, hitting the ball to the wall in left-center with the bases loaded. The Cardinals take game one of the season 4-3.

October 30, 2016

Lester Done

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The Cubs change the battery in the top of the seventh inning. Carl Edwards comes in to pitch, and Willson Contreras comes in to catch. Lester gave up two runs, walked none, and struck out five. Aroldis Chapman is warming up in the bullpen. Good.

Mike Napoli singles to start the seventh.

Update: Carlos Santana fouls a pitch off Willson Contreras‘s mask, and on the next pitch the ball gets away from him. Napoli moves to second on the passed ball. He holds there as Santana flies out to leftfield.

Joe Maddon comes out and brings in Chapman. Wow.

Update: Jose Ramirez strikes out swinging. Two down.

Update: Brandon Guyer gets grazed by a Chapman fastball, and runners are on first and second for Roberto Perez.

Update: Perez grounds out on a 1-2 pitch, and Chapman gets the Cubs out of the seventh. They still lead the Indians 3-2.

October 22, 2016

The Contrarian

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Willson Contreras spells his first name differently, and he just did something rarely seen this season. Contreras leads off the bottom of the fourth inning with a home run, giving the Cubs a 4-0 lead over the Dodgers. Clayton Kershaw allowed just eight home runs during the regular season.

The Cubs are either in control of game six, or setting themselves up for another soul crushing defeat. With the Cubs, it can go either way.

Update: Note that Kershaw gave up just 27 extra base hits during the regular season. He allowed four tonight. The Cubs lead 4-0 at the end of four innings.

October 19, 2016

Close Play at the Plate

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Andrew Toles delivers a single with men on first and second and two out in the bottom of the second inning. Adrian Gonzalez is called out at home, but the replay appears to show Gonzalez is safe. The play is under review.

Jason Heyward made a bad throw to the plate. He threw the ball too high, and Wilson Contreas had to come up the line a bit. That made it hard for him to get back. Maybe the worst LCS throw since Barry Bonds failed to throw out Sid Bream.

Replay upholds the out call. I suspect Contreas might have gotten Gonzalez with a string of his glove.