At the annual Cubs Convention last weekend, Cubs catcher Willson Contreras said the type of moderately cocky but ultimately innocus thing athletes say all the time. Explaining why he no longer watched tape of All-Star catchers Yadier Molina and Buster Posey, Contreras offered the following, according to the Chicago Sun-Times:
“I used to watch a lot of those guys,” he said on opening night of the annual Cubs Convention, “but now I’m watching myself because I know that I’m going to be better than them. That’s my plan. That’s my [mindset].”
…
“I know that I have a lot of talent,” he said, “and I thank God every day for giving me this kind of talent that I have. In my mind, I want to be the best catcher in the game for a long time — like it was with Yadier Molina, like it is with Buster Posey.”
Pretty innocent, right? Contreras isn’t saying he’s miles ahead of Molina and Posey or even that he’s better at all. He’s simply saying he wants to be one of the game’s best, like most players do, and given that he’s 25 years old and has a career .278/.356/.493 batting line, it’s a pretty reasonable aspiration.
Well Molina, for one, did not like it. The longtime Cardinals catcher posted a photo to Instagram on Wednesday of him, Posey and Salvador Perez, with a caption that translates to, “Respect the ranks, novice. Here are those who have proven they are the hard ones.”
Molina, of course, is one of the best catchers of the past couple decades and deserves tons of respect, but it’s far from outrageous to say Contreras has already surpassed him. The Cubs’ backstop outperformed his Cardinals counterpart in most offensive categories, and defensive metrics suggest he was comparable defensively as well. Per both FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference WAR, Contreras actually produced more value than Molina in 2017.
It worth noting that we don’t if Molina is actually mad or if he’s just lightly teasing a young player. Regardless, a little rivalry between some divisional foes never hurt anybody. Except for maybe Don Zimmer… and John Roseboro… and Jason LaRue. Well, you get the point.
