Brewers Set To Repeat Corbin Burnes Mistake With William Contreras

There have been some low points in the Milwaukee Brewers' recent five-year run of success, and souring the relationship with Corbin Burnes was one of them.

Before the 2023 season, the Brewers took Burnes to arbitration, which meant they had to argue in front of a panel and Burnes himself as to why the former Cy Young Award winner shouldn't get paid the $10.75 million he was asking for, but rather, the $10.01 million they were arguing he was worth.

Milwaukee won the case, but Burnes readily said that the relationship between the two sides had been damaged, as the Brewers supposedly heaped blame on the All-Star righty for the team not making the playoffs the previous year. The following winter, Burnes was traded to the Baltimore Orioles.

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Now, the Brewers appear to be falling into the same trap they did with Burnes in the case of All-Star catcher William Contreras.

Brewers, Contreras appear slated for arbitration

After declining their $12 million club option for Contreras in November, the Brewers were already playing with fire. Then, on Thursday, MLB.com's Mark Feinsand reported that Milwaukee and Contreras were slated to go to arbitration, which the Brewers avoided with all of their eligible players before that day's deadline.

Contreras remains under team control for the next two years, which was the same position Burnes was in when he had his arbitration hearing. The Brewers, apparently in emergency penny-pinching mode after committing $32 million to Brandon Woodruff this year between a buyout and a qualifying offer, will attempt to save every penny they can on their superstar catcher.

And make no mistake, things can and do get nasty in these hearings. Here was part of what Burnes had to say about his hearing after it happened:

"Obviously, it's tough to hear. It's tough to take. They're trying to do what they can to win a hearing,'' Burnes told reporters in February 2023, per the Associated Press. "There's no denying that the relationship is definitely hurt from what (transpired) over the last couple of weeks. There's really no way of getting around that."

"You kind of find out your true value. You think you work hard for seven years in the organization, and five years with the big league team, and you get in there and basically they value you much different than what you thought you'd contributed to the organization."

Do the Brewers want Contreras coming to spring training saying something alarmingly similar? If not, they'd be wise to return to the negotiating table and work out a creative extension with a club option to avoid that headache.

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