We’re kicking off our 2026 MVBrewers rankings, and the voting for this year’s No. 1 player was perhaps the closest we’ve ever seen: With 74 total votes in our poll on The Feed, catcher William Contreras edged second baseman Brice Turang with 37.9% of the vote (28 votes) compared to 35.1% (26 votes). Jacob Misiorowski garnered 18.9% (14 votes), while Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers, and write-in candidate Aaron Ashby each picked up two votes (shoutout to @Berhaltersburner for the recognition).
While Turang
is a top-three MVP finisher in the league (likely behind Pete Crow-Armstrong and Shohei Ohtani), that’s a regular-season-only award, whereas we don’t have those restrictions here, and perhaps that’s exactly what separates Contreras from Turang.
While Contreras ranked seventh on the team in bWAR (2.9) and sixth in fWAR (3.0), he added more immeasurable value than any other player, managing one of baseball’s pitching staffs. He also was an incredible ABS-challenger in the postseason — after an MLB-leading 195 challenges in the regular season at a 56.9% overturn rate, Contreras went 22/33 as a catcher in the postseason, including an incredible 10/13 in the World Series.
Contreras also raked all postseason, slashing .373/.448/.588 with three homers, two doubles, nine RBIs, seven runs scored, and a steal across 13 games.
And while Contreras had a great postseason, he had nothing to be ashamed of in the regular season. Yes, he turned in just 2.9 bWAR after eclipsing 3.7 WAR in each of his first three seasons with Milwaukee, but he still hit .270/.341/.417 with 18 homers, 27 doubles, 94 RBIs, and 82 runs. Part of the reason his WAR is deflated is a rough stretch from early July to mid-August — across 31 games, he went just 16-for-113, slashing .142/.240/.257 with two homers (one of which was a walk-off homer against the Marlins), five doubles, eight RBIs, and 10 runs scored. Not ideal for an All-MLB catcher.
Even so, Contreras’ Baseball Savant page still features a lot of above-average metrics. He ranked in the top-third of the league in xwOBA (.334), xBA (.261), xSLG (.441), average exit velocity (90.3 mph), hard-hit rate (44.1%), squared-up rate (31.5%), whiff rate (20.7%), and strikeout rate (14.7%). He was also one of the league’s best catchers at catching base stealers, ranking in the 92nd percentile in caught stealing.
Overall, it was a great season for Milwaukee’s backstop, and he’ll look to build on his strong postseason in the final year of his contract in 2027 (or will the Brewers give him an extension?).
We’ll continue these rankings on Thursday with our No. 2 player. To weigh in on the voting, visit The Feed (the poll will be posted later this morning).
- William Contreras (2.9 bWAR, 3.0 fWAR)
