The Milwaukee Brewers closed out the Tampa Bay Rays Wednesday night to capture their first World Series championship in franchise history. Catcher William Contreras was named World Series MVP thanks to an all around effort at the plate and behind it.
Contreras hit .381/.435/.429 in the series and drove in four runs. His finest work came behind the plate where he successfully led a dominant pitching performance by the Milwaukee’s pitching staff. This was the first World Series to feature the Automatic Ball-Strike system and Contreras took full advantage. He challenged 12 calls behind the plate and had nine overturned successfully. Zoom out to the entire postseason and Contreras hit .373 with three home runs and was successful on 21 of 32 ABS challenges. Contreras was the 27th player in Major League history to have multiple hits in his first three World Series games. He is the first catcher to earn series MVP honors since Salvador Perez in 2015 for the Kansas City Royals.
The Brewers had several worthy candidates in the MVP discussion. Jackson Chourio was 11-for-24 in the series with three stolen bases and four runs scored. His 11 hits are tied for the second-most all-time in the first five games of a World Series. Rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt had hits in six consecutive at-bats which was one hit shy of the record. Pratt had eight hits in the series and drove in seven runs. Aaron Ashby was a workhorse out of the bullpen for Milwaukee for the entire postseason. He made three scoreless appearances in the World Series where he struck out nine in 5 2/3 innings. Ashby didn’t allow a run in 18 postseason innings.