So you want to trade Willson Contreras? I hadn’t intended on making this post, but since Contreras is apparently more open to getting traded, if it’s the right fit, might as well see what any potential return will bring back. I already did this with Sonny Gray (I was wildly wrong, so take this with a grain of salt) and Nolan Arenado. Results to be determined on if I’m wildly wrong about Arenado, if I am, all hail King Bloom.

Since Gray’s trade went better than expected, it would not totally surprise me if Contreras was a similar story. They are, in some ways, similar as trade candidates. Both are, at least in theory, picky about where they go and hold no-trade clauses. Both are getting paid just enough that their on-paper value shouldn’t be that high. In both cases though, they’re still good players, and represent a much shorter commitment than a free agent of a similar caliber would.

In fact, if there are at least two or three contending teams who need a 1B, I think I’d argue the circumstances are much better to get an overpay for Contreras. I don’t really think it’ll work out that way because pitchers be expensive. But the only player on the market better than Contreras is Pete Alonso. I’m biased, but I’d absolutely rather have Contreras for two years with an option than whatever the hell Alonso is getting. I called Alonso better, but I would be zero percent shocked if Contreras has a better 2026 than Alonso. I do not trust Alonso to age well. I do, strangely, trust Contreras.

Contreras’ Steamer isn’t very good, but I’m going to discard it because I think it’s not a complex enough system to realize he’s now a 1B and also I don’t believe it uses any batted ball data. I believe it’s about as simple of a projection system as you can get, and that actually works more often than not, but in Contreras’ case, I’m easily taking the over. I’ve kept you in suspense long enough: Steamer has him worth 1.4 WAR in 437 PAs.

Okay first off, the plate appearances somewhat obviously are not adjusted even slightly to his position change. If you look at his past four seasons – 563, 358, 495, 487 – I mean yeah based off that, 437 sounds right. But catchers don’t get 600 PAs. 10 catchers received 500 or more plate appearances in 2025. He does have an an injury history, but 2024 was a bit of an anomaly. He was good for one IL trip per season and it never lasted more than a few weeks. I actually think his PA total from 2025 is probably a good guess – 135 games, 563 PAs.

Secondly, it seems clear to me that Steamer doesn’t use batted ball data at all. He has a .297 projected BABIP, which doesn’t make sense to me. His career BABIP is .311, his BABIP last season was .319, and his xwOBA suggested he got unlucky. Like really unlucky. He’ll be 34, so it wouldn’t be the strangest thing if his BABIP fell below .300, but I don’t see how you would project that. His BABIP in 2024 was .337, and in 2023, it was .311. Either it was BABIP or his power that should have been better, but his ISO declines in his projection too. No matter why or how, his batting line should be better.

So more PAs, better batting line. Do I have more? Why yes, yes I do. I think his defensive history as a catcher is impacting his projected defense by Steamer. They have him as a completely neutral defender, which makes a certain amount of sense if you look at his catching history and then inserted a random +6 in there. But he’s almost a blank slate at 1B.

I’m not going to assume he’ll repeat that however. There’s just not enough 1B who are doing that, who regularly post that high of OAAs for me to trust that is his true talent. I actually have a feeling he’ll look better by the eye test next year while posting worse numbers. Just my gut. Anyway, we’ll call his defense +3 OAA. Halfway between average and his numbers last year. I think that’s fair.

So I’ll make this extremely easy on myself. I’m just going to have him essentially repeat last year with slightly worse defense. That might be a little optimistic on the offense repeating admittedly, but between the potential for his defense to be the same (or better) and the fact that we don’t have a great PA history on him as a 1B, I feel like this is still fair. Like if he was never a catcher and played 1B his whole career, I honestly think his projected plate appearances would be better than 563 plate appearances. So in the end, I’m giving him 2.5 fWAR and thus 2 fWAR for 2027.

His salary over the next two years is 2 years, $41.5 million if you include the $5 million buyout. I think that buyout has a reasonable expectation of being exercised personally. Contreras coming off a 2 win season and you either pay him $5 million to buzz off or his salary for 2028 is $17.5 million. If 37-year-old Paul Goldschmidt can get $12.5 million off a 1.2 fWAR season, I don’t see why you would reject that. So instead that’s 2.5 WAR/2 WAR/1.5 WAR Contreras getting paid $54 million instead of $41.5 million for two years.

Believe it or not, that third year does give him more value even though technically he wouldn’t be worth that third year if he actually achieved 1.5 WAR. But we’re taking $5 million off year two and he gets a whole another year to gain more value. If you see the difference in salaries, the acquiring team is paying him an extra $12.5 million for an extra 1.5 WAR. I would even go as far as to say that it is a reasonable expectation that his option will be exercised and we can simply use the surplus value from a 3-year deal instead of acting like his option will get rejected. (Like I did with Gray)

As such, he will be getting paid $54 million over 3 years, while my personal projection has him being worth 6 WAR. That is $6 million in surplus value. You really have to cook the books as far as Contreras’ projection to think, on paper, he has more than that. It’s very easy to talk yourself into Contreras being more valuable than that over the next three years though. It feels like there’s upside to that projection that I typically wouldn’t ascribe to a 34-year-0ld 1B. For one thing he could get 100 more PAs and it wouldn’t be surprising.

12 1B have achieved +6 OAA since 2021, and of those 12, only Christian Walker, Carlos Santana, and Anthony Rizzo have done it more than once. Santana and Walker appear to be legit fantastic fielders, and maybe Contreras is that guy too. He’s only had one year of experience at 1B. And again, just gut feeling, he feels like a hitter who will age well, he’s one of my top contenders to be Nelson Cruz. Any of those reasons and I can see someone who would overpay for him.

Also, like I said, the alternative option is Pete Alonso. Alonso has a 2.6 WAR Steamer in 679 PAs. From a per plate appearance standpoint, I think Contreras is probably better. Alonso’s problem is that he is not good at anything but hitting. He’s actually really, really bad at fielding and baserunning. Shockingly so. Contreras is not a good baserunner, but he’s easily better than Alonso, who has cost the team 10 runs with his baserunning in the past two years. I actually think a lot of that is double plays (which factor into the baserunning number, I don’t know if that’s well known), but nonetheless it gets put into WAR.

I want no part of Alonso on a long-term contract. I’m sure there are teams out there who feel the same way. Why not just trade for someone with a three-year commitment, who can defend and probably get fairly close with the bat? This, to me, is a much better argument to overpay than Sonny Gray, when the alternatives for him were Dylan Cease, Framber Valdez, and Ranger Suarez. Arguably even Michael King is comparable. Pitching is a much more scarce resource than 1B, so I know this isn’t the greatest comparison.

But yeah, if I’m a team, I’m trying to win, and I really need a 1B, I am absolutely trying to get Contreras before I get Pete Alonso. And it has very little to do with me liking Contreras more than Alonso. I think the numbers back me up on this. Whatever Alonso is asking for, I can’t imagine will be worth paying for a 2.6 WAR 1B. We know Contreras’ contract is worth it already.

Oh and by the way, $6 million in surplus value is not bad either. I just checked Craig Edward’s prospect valuation, and $6 million is worth either a 45+ future value pitching prospect or a 45 future value position player prospect. $8 million is a 45+ future value position player prospect. (A legit top 100 prospect is closer to $20 million if you’re wondering, so that is probably out of reach.) Just to give you a frame of reference in terms of value according to Fangraphs current grading:

45+ FV position player: Yairo Padilla

45 FV position player: Nobody as of last update; but probably weirdly either Jesus or Josh Baez, both of whom FG was relatively low on in the last update, but there are sites who would value them as this

45+ FV pitcher: Chen Wei-Lin

45 FV pitcher: Ixan Henderson

Obviously, Contreras is on the same team, but whatever the opposing team equivalent is of this: Ixan Henderson and Luis Gastelum for Contreras. The opposing team gives fair value and then slightly juices up the value with a true relief prospect, not a relief prospect like Brandon Clarke is a relief prospect. No a true, 100 percent going to be a reliever. That’s my guess.

But hey, I would love for that guess to be blown out of the water and I think the ingredients are there for that to happen. If the Cardinals throw in any money, they probably will get a great return. And I want to be clear when I say that: it takes two to tango for the Cardinals to throw in money. The Cardinals may want to throw in money, in fact, I bet they do, but say you’re a team who is considering between Alonso and Contreras. You clearly have the money for Contreras if those are your choices. That team is absolutely picking up his contract and happily if they thought they needed to pay for Alonso.

At the same time, if they do trade his entire contract, I’m not entirely sure how they’re going to hold true to saying they’ll replace the veteran deals. It’s easy enough to spend Sonny Gray’s $20 million, but add that to Contreras and his $18 million and then add whatever portion another team pays for Arenado (it won’t be zero) and oh yeah they should probably also spend the money for trading Brendan Donovan. And need I remind you that Miles Mikolas left too, although I have no hope that money is getting spent. Still though that’s a solid $50 million or so that they’re “supposed” to spend, and unless they have Kyle Tucker plans I don’t know about, not sure how they do that!