Monday, September 28

MILWAUKEE -- It might sound like a minor adjustment to a player’s pregame routine. But for someone as routine-oriented as Brewers All-Star catcher William Contreras, this is a big one. 

An obsessive attendee of early batting practice on the field during his years with the Brewers, despite the extra wear and tear on a catcher from all of those swings, Contreras has agreed to move some of those sessions inside to the batting cage. The shift allows for more focus on impacting the baseball precisely with tee work or flips, or hitting “live” pitching on the Trajekt Arc pitching machine, without worrying about whether the baseball clears the fence. 

“It’s a big change for me,” Contreras said. “I love to hit outside. But if they want me to do it, I’ll do it.” 

One of the men who convinced Contreras of the merits of a change is Guillermo Martinez, who joined the Brewers’ staff over the offseason as one of three hitting coaches. Martinez was a Blue Jays hitting coach from 2017-24 before spending last season with the Cubs’ Double-A club. 

He has been working with many of the Brewers’ Spanish-speaking hitters since coming to Milwaukee. Few like to hit more than Contreras. 

“William has been outstanding,” Martinez said. “I told him, ‘I know you can hit. I know you’re going to have good numbers at the end of the year. I know you’re going to make your money. But what level of a hitter do you want to be? Do you want to be that guy who wins Silver Sluggers? Or do you want to be MVP?”

Contreras, who already has won two Silver Slugger Awards, didn’t hesitate. 

He wants to be a league MVP. 

“So what I said is, ‘I’m not teaching you to hit, I’m teaching you how to prepare,’” Martinez said. “William has always been a guy that hits a lot on the field, but the last three, four series, we started going one day on the field, two in the cage. 

“I’ve seen this with real good hitters who want to hit for power because they’re strong: If you’re not disciplined, you can get away from the big picture. You want that tunnel vision.”

It’s easier to have tunnel vision for hitting, Martinez says, when the player isn’t focused on the flight of the baseball. Martinez found similar success with players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette in Toronto. 

“Trust me, the first day he went in the cage to hit, I was like, ‘Please get a hit [in the game],’” Martinez said. “I get it. It’s his routine. But I tried to explain to him that you might be hitting the ball far, but you’re not hitting it precisely, you’re getting false feedback when you’re hitting out there compared to when you’re hitting in here [in the batting cage]. I explained that when we controlled the environment, it benefitted Vlad.”

So, Contreras agreed to compromise. He was out on the field for early BP on Friday, when the Brewers opened a homestand against Paul Skenes and the Pirates. On Saturday, if they stick to this new plan, he will do his work inside. 

“I said, ‘Let’s try. Give me a week or two’” Martinez said. “And he’s been real good with it. You could see the change right away. Out there, you can get a little bit lost.”

Brewers first baseman Andrew Vaughn took batting practice on the field on Friday for the first time since undergoing surgery to remove a fractured hamate bone in his left hand on March 30. Vaughn has another follow-up with his surgeon on Tuesday, and he hopes to be ready to begin a Minor League rehab assignment soon thereafter.

It would mark his first chance to see live pitching.

Or would it?

Vaughn explained that he actually did get to see some pitching during his absence thanks to the Trajekt machine, a device you’ll find in batting cages across Major League Baseball. It projects a specific pitcher on a large screen and fires pitches from his precise release point with the same properties of velocity and movement. Plug in a pitcher, and a hitter can see a decent representation of his arsenal, on-demand.

(For a peek inside the cage to see what that looks like, MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola wrote about the Marlins’ use of the Trajekt in 2025.)

For Vaughn and Jackson Chourio, who is also coming back from a fractured left hand, it became a tool to stay sharp when they couldn’t swing the bat. During the Brewers’ last homestand, they stood in the batter’s box and tracked pitches from the same starting pitcher their teammates were facing for real that night.

“We were in there two, three innings every game,” Vaughn said. “We cut a baseball bat in half and we were swinging, just to have the timing right. It feels good.”

The next step is to actually make contact with velocity. Vaughn will get that chance as soon as he builds the strength.

“I feel like it’s pretty much all the way back,” Vaughn said. “Now, I think it’s just getting some at-bats under my belt. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later.”

The Brewers are in need of offense with Chourio, Vaughn and Christian Yelich on the injured list. They have a 21-year-old outfield prospect at Triple-A Nashville, Luis Lara (Brewers’ No. 11 prospect), who had a .346/.448/.519 slash line going into Friday night.

So, why isn’t Lara in the big leagues?

“If you’re bringing those young guys up, they’ve got to play,” manager Pat Murphy said. 

The implication is that the Brewers don’t see Lara playing full-time in the Majors just yet, largely because Chourio and Vaughn are expected back in a couple of weeks, then Yelich. The organization instead decided to call up first baseman/outfielder Tyler Black on Tuesday, and he batted cleanup as the designated hitter against Paul Skenes. 

What have the reports said about Lara so far?

“Lara’s a good baseball player,” Murphy said. “There’s not one part of his game that’s going to jump out at you. He’s a good defender, a good baserunner, he’s a good hitter. I think he’s just, all-around, a really good player. You don’t have the high-end exit velocity or the high-end running speed or anything like that. He’s just solid all-around. I think he’s a future big leaguer.”

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