As of right at this moment, the Milwaukee Brewers have only ever had two catchers win Silver Slugger Awards in their 55-year history: William Contreras in 2023 and William Contreras in 2024.
On Tuesday night, MLB announced the full list of Silver Slugger winners around the American and National Leagues and Contreras is the only member of the Brewers to make the cut. Amongst a long list of solid catchers the Brewers have employed over the years, he truly stands out in a category of his own.
Contreras, 26, has given the Crew their most solid and reliable catcher since peak Jonathan Lucroy. The slugger only has two seasons under his belt in a Brewers uniform and he's been arguably the game's best offensvie catcher throughout both.
In 2024, he recorded 37 doubles while hitting 23 home runs, driving in 92 runs and scoring 99 more of his own. He also possted a .281/.365/.466 line, which is near or slightly above the one he had in 2023. His 129 OPS+ also puts him 29 percent above league-average at the plate.
Brewers' William Contreras takes home NL Silver Slugger Award for catchers
It's not difficult to see why Contreras was picked as the best offensive catcher in the NL for a second straight season. Amongst catchers in all of baseball, he finished fourth in home runs, first in runs scored, third in RBI, first in stolen bases, first in walk percentage, second in batting average, first in SLG, and first in wRC+.
When narrowing the leaderboard down to only the NL, Contreras is number one across the board.
Over in the AL, Cal Raleigh of the Mariners, Salvador Perez of the Royals and Yainer Diaz of the Astros stole the show and sat at the top of that league's offensive leaderboards. Perez took home the Silver Slugger over there for the fifth time in his career.
In the NL, other winners of Silver Sluggers looked like this:
- C - William Contreras (2)
- 1B - Bryce Harper (4)
- 2B - Ketel Marte (1)
- SS - Francisco Lindor (4)
- 3B - Manny Machado (2)
- OF - Teoscar Hernandez (3)
- OF - Jackson Merrill (1)
- OF - Jurickson Profar (1)
- DH - Shohei Ohtani (3)
- UTIL - Mookie Betts (7)
That's elite company, and Contreras has continued to blaze his own path since coming over in that trade with the Atlanta Braves.