{"id":569007,"date":"2026-02-12T23:18:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/569007\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T23:18:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T23:18:49","slug":"william-contreras-brewers-avoid-arbitration-hearing-with-9-4-million-deal-brewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/569007\/","title":{"rendered":"William Contreras, Brewers Avoid Arbitration Hearing With $9.4 Million Deal &#8211; Brewers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tFor the second year in a row, the catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/contrwi02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=brewerfanatic.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-12_br\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">William Contreras<\/a> and the Milwaukee Brewers came to a last-minute deal to avoid an arbitration hearing.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tContreras and the Crew settled on a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/2022021548719399190\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">one-year, $9.4 million contract<\/a> for 2026 with a $14,5 million club option for 2027. The Brewers were set to enter the hearing with an offer of $8.5 million, while Contreras was seeking $9.9 million, so Milwaukee definitely moved above the midpoint, which would have been $9.2 million. A three-person arbitration panel would have decided on one of the two figures and nothing else.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tLast year, the two sides settled at $6 million for 2025 with a $12 million club option for 2026. The Brewers declined that team option, setting up another arbitration battle. A third and final trip through this process looms next offseason.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tContreras was the only player the Brewers didn&#8217;t come to terms with before needing to exchange figures.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tSince being acquired from Atlanta in a three-team trade before the 2023 season, Contreras has won two Silver Sluggers (2023, 2024) and was a 2024 All-Star. He received down-ballot NL MVP votes in each of his first two seasons.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tHis slash lines for each of his three seasons are\u00a0.289\/.367\/.457 in 2023, .281\/.365\/.466 in 2024 and .260\/.355\/.399 in 2025. He hit a career-high 23 homers in 2024, with 17 each in 2023 and 2025, typically hitting in the No. 3 or cleanup spot in the batting order. Contreras&#8217; 2025 production was hindered by a broken left (catching hand) middle finger, an injury he sustained late in the 2024 season and carried over. It became a big issue early in 2025, but he played through it, starting 128 games at catcher and another 22 at designated hitter.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tContreras is one of the top catchers in all of MLB due to his offensive prowess and strong defense.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Brewers&#8217; filing of $8.5 million matched the record for a second-time arbitration-eligible catcher, which was set by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=smithwi05,smithwi04,smith-094wil,smith-091wil,smith-090wil,smith-088wil&amp;search=Will+Smith&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=brewerfanatic.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-12_br\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Will Smith<\/a> of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Contracts with options are considered multiyear deals and can&#8217;t be used as comps for other arbitration cases. It is likely that the Brewers will decline next year&#8217;s club option.\n<\/p>\n<p>      \t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second year in a row, the catcher William Contreras and the Milwaukee Brewers came to a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,136,843,59,4280,4,67809,3801],"class_list":{"0":"post-569007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-milwaukee-brewers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brewers","10":"tag-milwaukee","11":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","12":"tag-milwaukeebrewers","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-mlb-arbitration","15":"tag-william-contreras"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116060223103203191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}