The loss of Willson Contreras and what passes for hope for the 2024 Cardinals

The struggling Cardinals lost their catcher and best player, but perhaps senior-circuit mediocrity will be the lifeline

Catchers, particularly at the big-league level, are necessarily outfitted with a high tolerance for pain. The job carries with it a regular complement of nicks and bursts and bruises, and a catcher’s resting state is probably one of gnawing discomfort. So when Willson Contereras in the second inning of Tuesday’s eventual loss to the Mets yelped and writhed on the ground for an agonizingly long time, you knew it was serious. And indeed it was. J.D. Martinez’s bat caught him on the left forearm and fractured the bones within. It was on the forward segment of Martinez’s swing, which means Contreras’ arm caught the full force of the bat. Or, as Martinez himself somewhat nauseatingly put it post-game: 

"You’re expecting to hit a ball and you hit an arm. And you’re like, what was that? I hit meat. I felt I hit meat. I didn’t hit just a glove where you point back at the catcher. It was solid. Dude, I hit him good. When I got to first, I felt terrible."

Contreras will undergo surgery and be out at least six to eight weeks as a result. What happened was a layered consequence. Contreras, at the team’s urging, now sets up closer to the plate in order to receive pitches better. He also lunged with his mitt at this particular slider from Miles Mikolas. As well, it’s not hard to find screen-shots that show Martinez set up far back in the box and possibly beyond the back line. Not unlike the 2011 Buster Posey-Scott Cousins collision that prompted MLB to revise rules on catcher-baserunner engagements, this incident will perhaps lead to new or clarified guidelines on where exactly catchers and batters are allowed to set up shop. In related matters, consider this yet another reason to make catcher framing go away forever via automated ball-strike calls at some point in the cherished future. 

That this happened to Contreras, who outwardly and surely inwardly relishes every sliver of playing baseball, is cruel. He’s endured a lot of losing since he arrived in St. Louis prior to last season, and he of course dealt with infantile back-biting from certain members of the pitching staff and then a public defrocking. Despite being an emotionally demonstrative sort on the field, he was able to distinguish himself as the only functioning adult during that particular dust-up. This remains to his enduring credit. 

The injury also takes a hunk out of what was turning out to be one hell of a season. He heads to his lengthy stay on the injured list with a 2024 slash line of .280/.398/.551 with 18 walks and 59 total bases in 31 games. Those are All-Star outputs for any player, let alone a primary catcher. For context, the average MLB catcher this year has a line of .239/.306/.384, and those numbers are of course being modestly buoyed by Contreras himself. He’s also the only Cardinal hitter who’s truly thrived in 2024. Remove his numbers from the mix, and the non-Contreras Cardinals this season have combined to “hit” .211/.285/.318. With the bat in his hands and in other, less measurable ways, Contreras has been the beating heart of a St. Louis lineup that has otherwise lacked such a thing. 

All of this is to say nothing of the work Contreras has done defensively. Statcast puts Contreras so far in the 79th percentile among big-league backstops in blocks above average and the 91st percentile in extinguished baserunners above average. Most impressive are his strides in pitch framing – the very strides that may have abetted this injury. One of the worst in his guild last season, Contreras in 2024 is in the 61st percentile at framing. Not that you needed evidence of this in Contreras, but that’s dedication to craft. He’ll be missed in every way that a player can be missed.