Coming off a trip to the NLCS, the Brewers‘ first in seven years, the front office would frustrate a lot of fans by trading away the team’s best players. Nonetheless, that seems very much in the cards for Freddy Peralta as he enters the final year of his contract with a lucrative deal awaiting him in free agency. With that reality in play, it would only hurt that much more if the Brewers shipped off other key contributors. It would take a lot for Matt Arnold to pull the trigger, says beat reporter Adam McCalvy, but a trade involving catcher William Contreras is at least conceivable if Milwaukee falls in love with an offer.

Ditching Contreras would be wild, but it could happen

Contreras has a $12 million team option next season that the Brewers will all but surely pick up. The two-time All-Star and Silver Slugger is fresh off his third straight year with a WAR of 3.7-plus. Despite overall numbers below his usual standards, 2025 was in many ways his most impressive as a Brewer. Contreras played most, if not the entire year dealing with a fractured left finger, yet played 150 games including 128 starts at catcher.

He bounced back from a slow start with 11 home runs between July 31 and the end of August. Many came at pivotal moments in games. After a homerless September, he rebounded yet again in the NLDS versus the Cubs with two more longballs and a .300 average.

In his three seasons in Milwaukee, Wild Bill has become a fan favorite. He himself has shown genuine affection for the city. A trade might result in riots.

And yet, baseball is a business. When asked about his own future with the team, Peralta acknowledged the same in the locker room after the Brewers had just been swept by the Dodgers in the NLCS. Contreras still has two years of control, but Milwaukee is known for getting ahead of the curve when it comes to maximizing their return value on players they are not willing or able to pay.

That’s not to say that they will trade Contreras, only that it is in the realm of possibility. McCalvy does say that the Brewers would have to be “absolutely bowled over by an offer.”

He also points to a compelling reason why they might test Contreras’ worth in the trade market: catching prospect Jeferson Quero, whom McCalvy says that fans could see as early as next season as a backup.

“And if he can avoid the sort of injuries that plagued the past two seasons,” McCalvy writes, “Quero looks like a solid player for the future.”

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