William Contreras remains the starter, but who will share the catching duties?
Entering 2025, the Milwaukee Brewers’ catching corps may be one of the smallest areas of concern, especially with William Contreras as the everyday guy. Even so, the question of who will get the bulk of the backup duties is up for debate.
The Brewers led MLB with 4.1 wins above replacement from the catcher position in 2024, just a tick ahead of the Phillies (4.0) and Dodgers (3.9) for the league lead. Much of that can be attributed to starting Contreras, who finished the year with 4.9 WAR, though not all of that comes as the catcher (531 of 679 total plate appearances). Gary Sánchez and Eric Haase rounded out the catchers for 2024, finishing with 107 and 63 plate appearances at the position, respectively.
Contreras will be in his first arbitration year in 2025 and won’t be a free agent until 2028, so he seems like the only known quantity of that group heading into the offseason. Haase is also in his first arbitration year, and his estimated salary for 2025 is $1.4 million (per Spotrac), a jump from his $1 million salary in 2024. Sánchez has a $4 million mutual option for 2025, which rarely get exercised.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s just assume Sánchez walks and Haase and the Brewers reach an arbitration agreement. That leaves Milwaukee with two solid catching options.
Contreras, barring an injury, will likely play ~120 games at catcher, as he did in 2024, while Haase could fill in for the remaining ~40 games. That’s what most teams would do, but given that the Brewers carried three catchers for a good chunk of 2024, that could be the case again in 2025.
In-house, the Brewers have top prospect Jeferson Quero, who missed all of 2024 with a shoulder injury he suffered on opening day with Triple-A Nashville. Quero was expected to make the jump to the bigs at some point in 2024, so that same expectation will be in play in 2025 if he stays healthy. Quero would be an upgrade defensively from Contreras, as he was awarded a MiLB Gold Glove in 2023 with Double-A Biloxi.
In parts of four seasons in the Brewers’ minor league system, he’s hit .278/.350/.445 with 28 homers, 114 RBIs, 116 runs, and 19 steals across 209 games. Defensively, he’s made 19 errors over 1,596 total chances (.988 fielding percentage) with 74 caught stealing to 157 steals (32% caught stealing rate).
Former top prospect Francisco Mejía — who hit .274/.348/.428 with 11 homers and 55 RBIs in 90 games with Nashville this year — is also an option, though he would have to re-sign as he was on a minor league contract.
Per MLB’s offseason list, other impending catching free agents include Kyle Higashioka, Travis d’Arnaud, Danny Jansen, Carson Kelly, Austin Hedges, Elias Díaz, Jacob Stallings, James McCann, and old friends Yasmani Grandal, Omar Narváez, and Martín Maldonado (though the latter two both struggled in 2024 and Grandal will be 36).
As I said at the top, the Brewers are lucky to have a constant in Contreras behind the dish. Still, how Matt Arnold and the front office view the catching corps entering this offseason will impact who Contreras shares time with in 2025.