Despite a lingering injury, William Contreras' defense has been spectacular this year

When the Milwaukee Brewers acquired William Contreras during the 2022-23 offseason, there were questions about the then-24-year-old catcher's defensive ability. However, in his third year with the Brewers, Contreras is looking like one of the best defensive catchers in baseball.

In his first season with the Brewers, Contreras immediately improved his framing ability, jumping from the 9th percentile to the 93rd in terms of runs saved as a result of framing, according to Baseball Savant. The Brewers' catching department, led by Charlie Green, who also serves as the team's bullpen coach, has continuously shown an ability to improve the framing ability of the organization's catchers. Most notably, other than Contreras, was the defensive transformation that former Brewer Omar Narváez went through when he joined the Brewers organization.

However, this year, Contreras has added a new skill to his repertoire: an elite ability to throw runners out. Contreras has thrown out 11 runners so far this season and leads all of MLB in the statistic. He's thrown out an impressive 44% of runners, nearly doubling his 22.6% mark from a season ago.

While it's taking a little while for Contreras to get his bat going this season, he's adding a ton of value on the defensive side of the ball.

Contreras avoids IL after Wednesday morning MRI only reveals old injury

Following Tuesday's win over the Houston Astros, Brewers manager Pat Murphy revealed that Contreras had been dealing with an injury to his catching hand. While the injury goes back to last season, the pain reached a point where the Brewers decided to have Contreras undergo testing to make sure that the injury hadn't worsened.

As reported by Brewers beat writer for MLB.com, Adam McCalvy, on X, the X-ray did not reveal a new injury, but did confirm that Contreras does have a fracture on the middle finger of his left hand.

As noted by Adam, Contreras will continue to play through the injury, but it's fair to assume that it has been impacting both his ability to catch the ball behind the plate and his grip on the bat at the plate. However, while he heals up to get back to the Silver Slugger that Brewers fans are used to seeing, Contreras will hope to continue his impressive throws from behind the dish.

He's out of the lineup in today's series finale against the Houston Astros, but it's likely that today was a scheduled off-day with the Brewers having a travel day tomorrow before their weekend series against the Tampa Bay Rays begins on Friday night.