Brewers catcher William Contreras does this trick to fool batters. Does it work?
William Contreras is experiencing something of a defensive renaissance, sitting near the top of the major leagues in catcher framing while also serving as the man with the most lethal arm behind the plate in baseball this season.
None of that, however, is even the most unique or compelling thing about his defense in 2025.
Watch the Milwaukee Brewers catcher closely for long enough and you’re sure to see him do a move largely idiosyncratic to himself: His own behind-the-dish version of the "Cha Cha Slide."
Sliiide to the left.
Sliiide to the right.
Every once in a while, as Contreras comes set in his crouch, he drops his glove to the dirt near the batter's back foot, spreading the leather in a circular motion to shuffle the dirt around a bit. You could see it during a pivotal moment against Houston on May 6, as Contreras reached into his bag of deviance, ever so slowly sliding his mitt through the dirt with Christian Walker at the plate representing the go-ahead run in the eighth inning.
The thinking is simple.
“If you hear the catcher,” Contreras said, “you’re going to know where it’s going.”
The hope is that the hitter will sense the dispersion of dirt and think that he's getting a pitch inside. Contreras will then of course slide in the other direction for a pitch headed to the outside of the plate. If it goes as planned, the batter will be left either frozen or flailing.
That's exactly how the pitch to Walker played out. The Astros slugger, whether fooled by hearing Contreras move or not, waved at a slider off the outer edge of the plate.
There are a few intricacies to the clandestine crawl. First, the quieter the crowd, the better. The whole point, after all, is for the batters to hear Contreras move. It also depends on the perceptiveness of the batter – or at least the perception Contreras has of their perceptiveness. Veteran Freddie Freeman is up? He will probably think twice. A young player like Jordan Walker or Edgar Quero, both of whom struck out against the move in recent weeks? Different story.
It’s also most common to see Contreras go to the move in a two-strike count when the batter is already on the defensive. There’s a smattering of instances in which he will pull the maneuver off early in a count, but the vast majority of them come with a batter on the ropes.
Contreras isn’t the first catcher to try something deceptive, of course. For as long as the game has been played with catchers and pitchers, teams have tried to keep signals and locations away from the opposing team.
But that’s what makes Contreras’ swipe all the more noteworthy. While trying to disguise what’s coming from the pitcher is nothing unique, Contreras’ way of doing it seemingly is. Perhaps the swipe-and-slide operation will catch on around the league, but it hasn’t happened yet.
“Everyone’s got their own thing,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “I guess that’s his. As long as it works at least one time..."
So…does it work?
Contreras’ slide is fun to watch, sure, but as far as the Brewers are concerned, they're not in the business of amusement. That leads to the important question at hand: Does it actually work? Are batters fooled?
After all, isn’t that the entire point?
Here’s what we found.
We watched all two-strike pitches received by Contreras this season through May 4. The final count of dirt swipes was 57. (There certainly have been a few strays; we weren’t going to go through every single pitch). Thirty-two of those were balls. There were also 10 whiffs or called strikes, eight fouls, four base hits and three outs on balls in play.
Perhaps notably, it’s been more successful of late for Contreras after a string of fooling nobody early in the season.
St. Louis' Jordan Walker struck out April 27 after a bait-and-switch, then three Chicago White Sox fell victim to the trick in Milwaukee’s next game two days later. Against the Chicago Cubs that weekend, Miguel Amaya, perhaps sensing some movement behind him, waved at a slider away.
Nevertheless, the numbers on the whole don’t paint a picture of a great success rate for Contreras.
In MLB this year, only 36% of two-strike pitches result in a ball. On the other hand, 56.1% of two-strike glove-swipes we found from Contreras have. On the other side, 19% of two-strike pitches result in a strikeout, a slight tick up from Contreras’ 17.5%.
It’s still not a significant enough sample to draw conclusions from, but the evidence doesn’t suggest that opposing batters are, on the whole, incredibly fooled.
That the results are a mixed bag isn’t entirely surprising to the maestro of the move himself.
“Sometimes it works,” Contreras said. “Sometimes it doesn’t.”
The game within the game
There could be some trepidation within the Brewers themselves that the attempt for trickery could backfire if it becomes a tell.
If a keen opponent gets a sense that Contreras is swiping dirt and knows that he always calls for an outside pitch when he does that, it could very well give the location away.
That’s the sort of thing that could be in the scouting report ahead of a series against the Brewers if the other team is doing its due diligence, although the decrease in advance scouts across baseball might allow it to slip through the cracks more often.
Or, if the pitcher misses his location and spots the ball on the inner half, it could end up going right where the batter is looking if the shuffle is working as intended. That's exactly what happened on the pitch immediately following the one Christian Walker waved through on May 6, and he lined it to left for a base hit.
Contreras is at the very least aware of this, and says he has taken into consideration mixing things up if he senses a team is getting a feel for where the pitch is going.
“Maybe sometimes they know I’m doing it,” he said. “So sometimes I’ll have to stay and do it and stay on that side. I have to change it up.”
Perhaps there is more evolution to the chess game still to come. Stay tuned.