William Contreras Says He Is the Best Catcher in the World After World Series MVP

William Contreras did not wait for anyone else to rank him. Moments after Milwaukee clinched its first World Series title, the 28-year-old catcher, a Venezuelan flag draped around his shoulders, said he feels like the best catcher in the league and the best catcher in the world. The claim came with a .381 Series average, four runners thrown out and 10 successful ABS challenges behind it, and it reopened an old wound in Atlanta, where fans turned on the front office that traded him away.

What exactly did Contreras say?

He said it twice, with a disclaimer attached both times. Speaking through a translator, Contreras told reporters: “I don’t want to offend any of the other catchers in the league. The last thing I want to do is offend any of them. But sitting up here today, champion of the world, I feel like I’m the best catcher in the league. Again, that’s no disrespect to any of them. That’s the last thing I want to do. But today I feel like I’m the best catcher in the world.” The Associated Press carried the quote in full, and it is the rare boast that arrives with its own apology built in.

Manager Pat Murphy backed him up in his own way. “He’s our pit bull. You don’t just walk up and pet him. There’s a chance you get nipped,” Murphy said, before revealing he had told Contreras before the clincher: “You will be the MVP of the World Series.” Moments after the trophy presentation, Contreras embraced his older brother Willson, a World Series champion with the 2016 Cubs, and called him his role model and his friend. The family thread runs through this Brewers October, as Willson Contreras had already called his brother the real NLCS MVP in a since-deleted post earlier in the playoffs.

What did he do to earn the MVP?

He did the two jobs of a catcher at once, and the numbers cover both. Contreras went 8 for 21 with a .435 on-base percentage, drove in four runs and doubled home a run in the 4-1 Game 5 clincher at Tropicana Field on Wednesday night. Behind the plate he threw out four of nine would-be base stealers and won 10 of his 13 challenges under the Automated Ball-Strike system, in the first World Series played with robot umpire appeals.

That made him the eighth catcher voted World Series MVP, joining Gene Tenace (1972), Johnny Bench (1976), Steve Yeager (1981), Darrell Porter (1982), Rick Dempsey (1983), Pat Borders (1992) and Salvador Perez (2015). The regular season explains how he got there: Contreras led the majors with 185 ABS challenges and 105 overturns, then won 22 of 33 in the postseason. He also hit .270 with 18 home runs and a career-best 94 RBIs as Milwaukee won a fourth straight NL Central title, and he was not the only candidate, with rookie Cooper Pratt setting a Series record with six straight hits and Jackson Chourio collecting 11 hits in five games. The MVP voters picked the catcher who steered the staff through all of it, and the parade on Friday showed how Milwaukee received him, with Contreras leading the crowd’s MVP chants himself.

Why are Braves fans angry?

Because the trade was a choice, not an accident. Atlanta sports radio station 680 The Fan posted the whole argument in two sentences on X: “The Braves gave up William Contreras for Sean Murphy. Now Contreras is a World Series MVP.” Fans replied by calling for general manager Alex Anthopoulos to be fired, with one writing that the trade was the main reason, more than the Freddie Freeman departure.

What kept the deal in the conversation is that Atlanta did not lose Contreras to free agency. The club chose to move him in December 2022, in a three-team trade that brought Murphy from Oakland. Milwaukee also received relievers Joel Payamps and Justin Yeager in the deal. Atlanta’s logic at the time was defense: Contreras had graded badly behind the plate early in his career, and Murphy arrived as a Gold Glove catcher coming off the best season of his career. Murphy made the All-Star team in his first Atlanta season, then the injuries started, and he has batted .194 with a .656 OPS since the start of 2024 while averaging a little over 66 games a season. Contreras, meanwhile, made two more All-Star teams and won a World Baseball Classic with Venezuela in March. Atlanta’s answer at the position is now Drake Baldwin, who has since become an All-Star catcher there, but the comparison looks different if Murphy had stayed healthy, and that caveat is doing a lot of work in Atlanta this week.

Does the numbers case back him up?

Only partly, and the gap is worth stating plainly. Bleacher Report notes that Contreras’s 3.0 WAR ranked fifth among catchers at FanGraphs, well behind Arizona’s Gabriel Moreno at 5.4, and that Cal Raleigh’s reputation took a hit after a poor 2026 season. On that one leaderboard, Contreras is not the best catcher in baseball.

His case rests on something else: the trophy, the ABS mastery and the durability. He played every day through a season in which he challenged more pitches than anyone in the majors and overturned more of them, then carried that edge into October, where his 10 successful Series challenges were the most visible version of a skill no other catcher used as well. Murphy’s own celebration exchange with Pat Murphy, whose Yankees jab made headlines earlier in the week, is a reminder that this Brewers team talks about itself in plain terms. Contreras talked about himself the same way, and on Wednesday night the voters agreed with him.

What happens next?

The contract question comes first. Milwaukee holds a $15.5 million option on Contreras for 2027, and he is eligible for free agency after that season. Sportskeeda notes The Athletic raised the possibility that the Brewers could trade him rather than lose him for nothing, a strange sequel for a player who has just delivered the franchise’s first title. Atlanta, for its part, has not responded to the fan criticism, and Anthopoulos has said nothing publicly about the trade this week. Contreras will be 29 when the option decision falls due, with a World Baseball Classic title, a World Series title and one MVP trophy of his own, and his claim will now follow him into every series he plays: the best catcher in the world, self-declared, with a week of October evidence to point to.