{"id":360805,"date":"2025-12-22T02:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T02:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360805\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T02:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T02:08:10","slug":"willson-contreras-traded-to-red-sox-as-cardinals-continue-rebuild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/360805\/","title":{"rendered":"Willson Contreras traded to Red Sox as Cardinals continue rebuild"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Red Sox<\/a> have acquired veteran slugger Willson Contreras<\/a> in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a>, reports ESPN<\/a>. The Cardinals will receive righty Hunter Dobbins<\/a> and minor-league pitchers Yhoiker Fajardo and Blake Aita in return, according to The Athletic<\/a>. This is the second significant Cardinals\/Red Sox trade this offseason; Boston sent two young pitchers to St. Louis for Sonny Gray<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

Similar to Gray, Contreras will receive an additional $1 million in guaranteed money in exchange for waiving his no-trade clause, according to the Boston Globe<\/a>. He is signed through 2027 with a club option for 2028, and now has $42.5 million coming his way. The Cardinals will pay $8 million of the $42.5 million, reports MassLive<\/a>. While Contreras initially showed no interest in leaving St. Louis, even in the face of the ongoing rebuild, he eventually reconsidered and waived it to approve the deal to a Red Sox club that, unlike the Cardinals, figures to contend in 2026.<\/p>\n

The trade pushes Boston’s payroll into the same range as last year, meaning the the Red Sox will either have to raise payroll or shed a contract(s) to bring back third baseman\u00a0Alex Bregman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Contreras, who’s going into his age-34 season, is a former catcher who will likely man first base and DH for the Red Sox, as he did for the Cardinals in 2025. He gives Boston a needed middle-of-the-order righty bat and fits Fenway Park well given his above-average pulled fly ball rate. Contreras is coming off another productive season:\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Those 2025 outputs were good for a 123 OPS+ and a 2.5 WAR in 135 games. Contreras continues to back up his strong offensive production with similarly imposing batted-ball indicators. All of that suggests he’s likely to continue producing at a high level for the time being. For his career, the three-time All-Star has an OPS+ of 118 and a WAR of 29.2 across parts of 10 MLB<\/a> seasons. Over that same span, he’s averaged 26 home runs and 31 doubles per 162 games played. Defensively, Contreras put up strong numbers last season, his first as a primary first baseman.<\/p>\n

Dobbins, 26, had a 4.13 ERA with 45 strikeouts in 61 innings in 2025, his first season in the majors. A knee injury ended his season in July, though he is expected to be ready in time for spring training. MLB Pipeline<\/a> ranked Fajardo as the No. 23 prospect in Boston’s system, calling him a “potential mid-rotation starter.” Aita was unranked. He and Fajardo both pitched in Single-A in 2025.<\/p>\n

Boston went 87-73 in 2025 and reached the postseason for the first time since 2021. They were eliminated by the rival New York Yankees<\/a> in the Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Red Sox have acquired veteran slugger Willson Contreras in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[3959,49,48,155289,155287,72540,462,155288,82,3982,13989],"class_list":["post-360805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cardinals-trade","tag-contreras-trade","tag-hunter-dobbins","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox-trade","tag-sports","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-willson-contreras"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}