Cubs have a lot of ground to make up in NL Central catchers rankings heading into '25

Happy New Year's everyone! While the Chicago Cubs front office still seems unsure if they will make a resolution to keep improving their roster this offseason, we can all be appreciative that the Cubs play in a division where none of the teams seem hell-bent on competing this year.

In this article and ensuing posts, I'll take a look around the division and rank the projected starter for each team at each position to get us all reacquainted with the competition (or lack thereof). We will then combine the total rankings, and stack rank the teams' rosters overall.

To break in the New Year, let's start at catcher. The position shockingly has some pretty interesting storylines as we head into 2025. Unfortunately, the top of the list starts in Milwaukee.

1. William Contreras - Brewers

Willson Contreras' little brother has erupted into borderline superstardom and is the clear-cut best catcher in the National League at this point. He's always rated out as a better receiver than his older brother (and as an excellent pitch framer some years), and the former Brave drastically improved his advanced batted ball metrics in 2025. The package of consistent performance, elite slug for the position, and above-average defensive metrics make William Contreras the clear number one in the division.

By the way: the Brewers absolutely cleaned up in the three-way trade that brought Contreras up north from Atlanta. The deal was a bit of a head-scratcher even when it happened, as the Braves had to give up a ton to gain a potentially slightly better catcher in Sean Murphy. After one good season, Murphy has taken a definite downturn due to injuries and the Brewers also scooped up ace reliever Joel Payamps in the deal.