Brewers catcher William Contreras underwent a minor procedure to repair his broken left middle finger, president of baseball operations Matt Arnold told reporters (link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). It’ll keep him from participating in baseball activities for 5-6 weeks but is not expected to impact his availability for Spring Training.
Contreras played through the fracture for the entire 2025 season. The injury is believed to have occurred during the ’24 campaign, though the team didn’t announce the presence of a break until this past May. Contreras did not spend any time on the injured list and has not had a single IL stint in his career. Only J.T. Realmuto logged more starts or innings behind the dish this year.
The injury did seem to weigh down Contreras a little bit at the plate. He hit .260/.355/.399 with 17 home runs through 659 trips. That’s still strong production, especially from a catcher, but is below the .285/.366/.462 combined slash he posted over his first two seasons in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee declined a $12MM option on Contreras this afternoon. That’s a procedural move that isn’t related to the injury. He remains eligible for arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for an $11.1MM salary. Contreras collected a $100K option buyout, so any arbitration salary under $11.9MM would mean the Brew Crew saved themselves a little bit of money with the option decision. Contreras will go through arbitration once more and is on track to hit free agency during the 2027-28 offseason.
We need pictures of the finger in a cast after surgery please.
Why?
Hell of a thank you for playing injured all year. They decline his option because he might get slightly less in arbitration. Wonder if he plays thru the Injury next time. No good deed goes unpunished.
It’s about saving 800,000
If he had gotten surgery mid-season, there’s a pretty reasonable chance he would have put up better numbers and been worth the $12 million dollar option.
Between this and the Corbin Burnes situation, players are getting more and more aware of how cheap the Brewers can be.
They gonna give Nutting a run for his money and he DFAs or cuts players who are eligible for performance bonuses 2 years in a row
But missing time, thats not gonna encourage the brewers to cough up the dough. It could also be they think his performance coming off surgery is gonna be 800k less
Better numbers could have increased his projected arbitration salary to the point where it would have been a better move to pick up his option.
The Brewers owner is notoriously cheap
He’s one of the best catchers in baseball. EXTEND him and don’t screw around
Contreras has one year left as a Brewer. For a couple of reasons. First Catchers over 30 years old have a dramatic decline in production. Contreras turns 28 in a couple of months. After next year he will have one expensive year of Arbitration left, which will run about $16 million. Because we have a young competent replacement in the minors ready to replace him, Put all of these factors together and it makes Contreras’ time with the Brewers at one more year.
He’ll probably start seeing a lot more games as as DH or 1B, to delay that C problem you mentioned
Why did he waited until now to get it? His team was eliminated weeks ago now