Contreras the Roof
William Contreras (MIL): 3-4, 2 HR, 2 R, 3 RBI.
After hitting his first homer in eight games on Saturday, William Contreras decided one wasn’t enough on Sunday, crushing two homers and helping the Brewers claw back against the Mets and win their ninth straight, pulling away as the best team in baseball with 73 wins. Contreras’ final line on the night was 3-4, 2 HR, 2 R, 3 RBI.
Contreras is slashing an underwhelming .255/.354/.389 in 2025, considering he had a SLG higher than .450 over the last three seasons, and hit .281/.365/.466 with 23 homers last season, vaulting him into one of the top catchers taken in 2025 fantasy drafts. What happened in 2025, and is it too late for Contreras to right the ship?
While Contreras’ HardHit%, Avg EV, and MaxEV are slightly down, they are more or less close to the levels we’ve seen them over the past three years. What has taken a significant dip is his Barrel%, down to 5.8%, after never being lower than 9.4%. His xSLG is .387, lower than his actual poor SLG. A lot has to do with a fractured finger that was only diagnosed at the beginning of May, but might have occurred all the way back in August 2024. The discomfort was getting to be too much, but Contreras still decided to tough it out. His slash line has been dipping since, with a poor May line of .245/.355/.362, and an even more poor line of .217/.337/.313 in June. His July, however, was more solid, up to .283/.327/.414, while his August has been great, slashing .278/.395/.639, and hitting four of his 12 home runs.
Is Contreras completely healthy now? Probably not. Pain tolerance comes and goes, and it might affect his swing and ability to barrel a ball consistently until he gets some rest in the offseason (and that might not be for a while, given how the Brewers are playing). But when he does connect, he’s still one of the best power-hitting catchers in baseball. He’s even improved his BB% and lowered his K% this season to career bests (13.3% BB rate and 18.3% K rate), perhaps realizing he needs to tweak his game if the power isn’t always there. But if everything clicks, both new skills and old skills, Contreras can raise himself back up to a top 3 fantasy catcher in the league.
Let’s see how the other hitters did Sunday:
Noelvi Marte (CIN): 3-5, 2B, HR, 3 R, 4 RBI.
Marte was one of three Reds who had a solid say at the plate. His three-run 427-foot bomb was his eighth of the season. Marte’s breakout season was put on pause due to an oblique injury, and the former top prospect has looked locked in since his July 4 return. He’s amazingly cut his K rate down from 31% in 2024 to only 18.5% in 2025.
Spencer Steer (CIN): 3-5, 2B, HR, 2 R, 4 RBI.
Steer has been a fantasy disappointment for most of 2025, following an equally disappointing 2024, but he had a big day on Sunday, clubbing a homer and collecting four RBIs. 2023 seems to be an outlier year for Steer, but we probably should have seen it coming with his low average EV — 88.7 mph in his best season and 86.6 mph this season, which is the bottom 10th percentile of the league. Stay clear of Steer in fantasy.
Miguel Andujar (CIN): 2-3, HR, 3 R, 3 RBI, BB.
Miguel Andujar hit his first home run with the Reds since being acquired by Cincinnati from the Athletics at the trade deadline. Andujar now has seven homers on the season and is slashing an unsustainable .375/.500/.688 over his last seven games. Remember also that he is purely a platoon bat for his new team, making his measly 3% roster rate in Yahoo seem quite reasonable.
Adrian Del Castillo (ARI): 3-5, 2B, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI.
It’s Sunday, and you know what that means — it’s backup catcher home run day! Adrian Del Castillo did the honors for Arizona, which was his first of the season, and he added a single and a double for good measure. Even though he hit 26 bombs in Triple-A last year, he came into this game with zero barrels. There’s no direction but up for Adrian, that is, when he’s playing.
Kyle Manzardo (CLE): 2-4, 2 HR, 2 R, 2 RBI.
It was a double-dinger day for Manzardo, each of the solo variety. Manzardo is up to 20 homers this year, and while he’s had an up-and-down, inconsistent sophomore season, he’s someone to target in 2026 drafts as he could take a leap forward in the Guardians’ young lineup.
Kerry Carpenter (DET): 2-4, 2B, HR, 2 R, 4 RBI.
Carpenter has struggled to stay healthy in his career and missed time this year on the IL, but has been crushing the ball since his return at the end of July. He’s up to 21 homers on the season, with five in his last 12 games. He does hit righties better than lefties, and that leaves him susceptible to being platooned, but in daily leagues or weekly leagues where the Tigers are playing only righties (like this coming week), Carpenter is a strong fantasy play.
Luke Keaschall (MIN): 3-5, 2B, HR, R, 2 RBI.
Keaschall has been flying since his return from the IL this week and crushed a game-winning walk-off homer in the 11th inning, as the Twins beat the Royals in extras. He now has an 11-game hitting streak and does not look like he’s anywhere close to cooling off. Alas, he is a rookie, and the slump will come, but probably less pronounced than others because he has such elite contact skills. Enjoy the ride – he might be one of the last waiver wire darlings of the season.
Isaac Collins (MIL): 3-5, 2B, HR, 2 R, RBI.
Speaking of waiver wire darling rookies who hit walk-off homers on Sunday, Collins should be shown more love in the fantasy community. The MLB community just awarded him the Rookie of the Month award in July, and he hasn’t missed a step in August, yet he continues to be under-rostered in fantasy, owned in only 23% of Yahoo leagues. He is hitting .295/.395/.448 on the season with eight HRs, 45 runs, 40 RBI, and 13 SB in only 96 games. He hit out of the two-hole on the best team in MLB for the second day in a row. Pick him up now and get him in your lineup.
James Wood (WSN): 2-5, 2 2B, R, 4 RBI.
Wood is a future fantasy and MLB star. Just look at the 22-year-old’s Statcast page, which is red hot in all the right places. While he had an amazing first half and is having a poor second half, he hit his 25th homer on Saturday, his first in 21 days, and followed that with another strong game, as he hit two doubles and collected four RBI on Sunday. Here’s to hoping he’ll have as strong a finish to the 2025 season as his performances in March, April, May, and June.
