William Contreras offers concerning reaction to Brewers' 2026 arbitration offer

Here we go again. Thursday was the deadline for MLB teams to come to terms with players they agreed to tender contracts to, who are still under team control but in the arbitration eligibility window. In short, the player's representation will provide a salary they think is best for the player, the team will throw out a number of what they are willing to pay, and the two sides will negotiate.

If they are unable to come up with a deal, the team still controls the rights to that player, and the two sides can continue negotiating over the course of the next few weeks, but if no agreement is reached, an arbitration hearing occurs. Said hearing involves a third-party arbitrator deciding between two salaries: one that the player's representation submitted and one that the team submitted.

Many times, these arbitration hearings can go south, especially if the player attends the hearing. Just ask Corbin Burnes, as it significantly soured his relationship with the Milwaukee Brewers back in 2023.

Milwaukee was able to come to terms with five of their six arbitration-eligible players, and did so under projected values on nearly all of them. As positive as this is, the one player that Milwaukee didn't come to an agreement with is a rather important one: two-time All-Star, William Contreras.

What's Next?

Milwaukee can still come to an agreement with Contreras in the coming weeks, just as they did last year, which allowed the two sides to avoid an arbitration hearing. Contreras is one of the key cogs that make the Brewers run as effectively as they have, both at the plate and behind it, working with the pitching staff that is perennially one of the best in all of baseball.

In the event that they cannot come to terms on an agreement, the two sides will go to an arbitration hearing and make their respective cases for what Contreras should be paid for the upcoming season. Those hearings generally take place during the first few weeks of February and can occasionally overlap with Spring Training.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The positive news is that the two sides weren't all that far apart. Per MLB.com's Mark Feinsand, Contreras' reps filed at $9.9 million, while the Brewers filed at $8.55 million. $1.35 million certainly isn't nothing, but it's a far better situation to be in than the Detroit Tigers, who set an MLB record by being $13 million apart in their negotiations with their ace, Tarik Skubal.

Another positive here is that this has already happened with "Wild Bill," and the outcome was very positive for the Brewers. Last year, when the two sides didn't come to an agreement before the deadline, they negotiated a one-year deal with a club option for this season, which gave the Brewers a good fallback option if Contreras put together an otherworldly 2025 campaign.

The bad news is that the Brewers, and any team really, will tend to dig in with these negotiations. With the aforementioned Corbin Burnes situation, the gap was even smaller between the two sides. In case you need the refresher, the Brewers came in at $10.01 million, and Burnes came in at $10.75 million. The two sides went to an arbitration hearing, with the Brewers eventually winning the case, but not before the relationship between the two sides was jeopardized.

That brings us to the ugly. As noted above, and as many other Brewers writers have noted, things went massively downhill between Burnes and the Brewers after the hearing. When Burnes reported to Spring Training, he spoke with the media and torched the team, saying that the team directly blamed him for not making the playoffs in 2022, among other things, while arguing over roughly half of what the gap between Contreras and the Brewers is this year.

Even uglier, William Contreras took to social media after the deadline last night, with a very cryptic post on X. Definitely less than an ideal sight for fans who were hoping for a drama-free arbitration process this year. Contreras is coming off a down season, where he powered through an injury all year, and still hit 17 homers, drew a career-high 84 walks, while also striking out less than he did in 2024.

Both sides came in under the MLB Trade Rumors prediction of $11.1 million, which was also below the $12 million club option they agreed to last winter. So from a glass-half-full perspective, there is hope for the two sides to come to terms.

It's important to keep in mind that arbitration sets the standard for salaries going forward, meaning if the Brewers agree to a certain salary this year, it could hamper their ability to agree to reasonable salaries in the future, something that the small-market Brewers certainly have to keep in mind.

However, where Contreras and upset Brewers fans have a strong case is the precedent that has already been set for top-tier catchers in their second year of arbitration. As was widely reported last night after the news dropped, including a report from former Reviewing the Brew editor David Gasper on the social media platform X, the $8.55 million salary that the Brewers offered Contreras ties a record for a catcher in his arb-2 season, set by Will Smith of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024. That was two years ago, and in 2023 and 2024 Contreras beat out Smith for the NL Silver Slugger Award, essentially proving that he's at least worth Smith's arb-2 salary when adjusted for inflation. Such a reality means that Contreras absolutely deserves more than the $8.55 million that the Brewers offered him, even if his camps' offer of $9.9 million is a little high.

Hopefully, the two parties can work out an agreement before an arbitration hearing is necessary, because if Contreras’ initial reaction is any indication, the Brewers catcher is not too happy about the offer that his team made him yesterday. The last thing Milwaukee needs is a soured relationship with their All-Star backstop.