Braves Player Pool Profile: William Contreras

There are bargains like Ronald Acuña and Ozzie Albies and then there are bargains like William Contreras. Now Acuña signed for $100K in 2014, and the prior year Albies signed for a slightly larger amount at $350K. However, Contreras signed for a measley $10K in 2015, which is just ridiculous. He’s proven himself to be a worthwhile prospect, placing himself into top 10 rankings for Braves prospects and just outside some top 100 lists (ranked 125 on Fangraphs). He was primed to make some top 100 lists before having a down year at the plate in 2019. Even if he ends up just a backup catcher, that’s still tremendous value for $10K.

Where Shea Langeliers is more of an elite defensive catcher with an average hit tool, William Contreras is more of a jack of all trades. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, it just means he’s well rounded. In fact, some top 30 lists still have Contreras rated higher than Shea Langeliers (or at leat neck and neck).

Let’s start with defense. The first thing that sticks out is the arm of Conteras (literally). It’s above average to plus. His pop times are also good (under 2.00 most of the time) and well ahead of the MLB average of 2.01 seconds. To put this in perspective, his brother William had an average pop time of 1.92 in 2019 (tied for 2nd best according to BaseballSavant) while Brian McCann and Tyler Flowers were two of the worst at over 2.07 seconds.

However, a strong arm and good pop times doesn’t always lead to great caught stealing rates (CS%). There are many other factors that can lead to low CS% like an innacurate arm, a pitcher not containing the runner or their delivery is too long in getting the ball to the plate. Again, let’s look at Willson Conteras. His pop times are great and has one of the stronger arms in MLB (average throws of 86 mph), but yet he only had a 29 CS% (previous year was 34%). This was good for 26th in the league for catchers that had at least 10 steal attempts on them (Flowers and McCann were so bad I’m not mentioning it). William Contreras has produced CS% of 29%, 33%, 23%, 28% and 33% over the course of his MiLB career. These are solid numbers, but not close to elite like Langeliers. Each of the past two seasons there has been 98 steal attempts on him, so to see his caught steal rate improve is a good sign especially as he has been aggressively progressed to AA.

All is not great on the defensive side. While he is athletic behind the plate and should be a quality blocker and framer in time, he still needs quite a bit of work. His 13 passed balls in 2019 were a career high. As for game calling, this shouldn’t be a surprise that this part of his game is probably the weakest.

On offense, there’s a lot to like, but it’s still about future potential. He’s seen as someone that could become at least an average hitter, or even more like his brother. This would obviously be a best case scenario and be a huge boon for the Atlanta Braves. Contreras has put up average walk and strikeout rates for his MiLB career. He could stand to be a bit more patient at the plate, but that will come in time as his power develops and teams start to pitch around him more. Right now, there’s no reason for teams to do so as he’s slugging under .400 in High-A and AA. He currently has below average game power, but he has above average to plus raw power. Another positive is that he doesn’t have extreme righty/lefty splits.

There’s also few things holding Contreras back from reaching his full potential with the bat. One, his ground ball rate is way too high. He was close to 50% GB rate between High-A and AA. If you aren’t fast, you don’t want a high GB rate. Another thing is that Contreras pulls the ball a bit too much. He’s not near as bad as Cristian Pache, but if Contreras wants to reach his ceiling as a hitter, he’ll need to use the entire field.

In terms of the ground ball rate, a swing adjustment to lift the ball more should really solve this issue. And eureka, we have a swing change. Contreas has quiteted down his setup and his swing now looks similar to Ronald Acuña (before he dropped his hands). Take a look below at how much better this swing looks now. It’ll be interesting to see if he drops his hands more in the future, however, this is the type of swing that seriously will pay dividends and it’s a shame we won’t get to see him this season. So far in the intra squad games, he looks like a completely different and dangerous hitter.

Some people will look at his .263 batting average and .329 BABIP at High-A and wonder why he got promoted to AA. The Florida FireFrogs is just a tough place to keep a top prospect for very long. It rains a lot and it’s a tough place to hit. With a bit of hindsight, it looks like it was the right move. While he only put up a 90 wRC+, he was walking at a slightly better rate while cutting his strikeout rate from 21% to 19%. In other words, while the hits weren’t falling he wasn’t overmatched at all.

If both Shea Langeliers and William Contreras come close to their ceilings this would give the Braves two above average or better catchers. One of the weakest positions for MLB is catching, so down the line the Braves could package one in a trade to cover another area of need. It would be something to see two really good catchers for at least a couple of seasons.

Contreras is on the 40 man roster, but he only played 60 games above AA. For now, there’s not much chance that William Contreas gets playing time with the Braves this season with two solid veterans on the roster and Alex Jackson as the next player on the depth chart. However, if the new swing is legit and Alex Jackson continues to struggle at the plate, then it wouldn’t be shocking if Contreras makes his debut. Just don’t expect it.