First Offseason Decisions Loom for Brewers

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Photo Via Milwaukee Brewers - Facebook

José Quintana

While the Dodgers and Blue Jays will spend this week focused on winning the World Series, 28 other teams are waiting for them to be done so they can begin the process of building teams for 2026. 

The 2025 World Series could end as soon as Wednesday night and the first deadlines of the season come almost immediately thereafter. Players who are not under team control and/or contract for 2026 become free agents the next day, although they’re not eligible to officially sign with new teams until after 5 p.m. Eastern time on the fifth day.  

In the meantime, however, a few players need to find out if they’re going to be free agents or return to their existing clubs. Across the sport this MLB.com piece identified 69 players with options or opt-outs in their contracts for the 2026 season. Those decisions all need to be made in the five days after the World Series, and six of the players involved are Brewers. 

Among the six players, some of the options are more likely to be exercised than others. It’s relatively common for MLB contracts to have “mutual” options, which both a player and team have to agree to exercise, but it’s rare for those to actually come to fruition (so rare, in fact, that NBC Sports documented when one actually was exercised in 2013). The Brewers have four of those players: 

• Brandon Woodruff might have the most interesting decision among the group. The two-year contract he signed before the 2024 season while rehabbing from shoulder surgery was heavily backloaded: He has a $20 million mutual option for 2026 but the Brewers are on the hook for $10 million of it either way. Woodruff was effective in 12 starts for the Brewers this season but finished the year unable to pitch. The Brewers know more than anyone else about Woodruff’s health: If they think he’ll be fine to pitch next spring then he could be a bargain at what amounts to one year and $10 million above what they already owe him.
• On the other end of the spectrum, the Brewers almost certainly have no interest in Rhys Hoskins’ $18 million mutual option for 2026 and will instead pay him the $4 million buyout. Baseball Reference estimates Hoskins was worth just 0.7 Wins Above Replacement across two seasons in Milwaukee and even when healthy down the stretch in 2025 he appeared to be behind both Andrew Vaughn and Jake Bauers on the depth chart at first base.
• The Brewers might have some interest in retaining Jose Quintana, who posted a sub-4.00 ERA across 131 regular season innings for them as a 36-year-old this season. They’re unlikely to be so interested, however, as to commit to paying him the $15 million outlined in his option. They’ll almost certainly pay his $2 million buyout instead and come back to him later if his value on the open market doesn’t materialize.
• Finally, the Brewers are also extremely unlikely to commit to $12 million for another season of Danny Jansen as a backup catcher. The Brewers only used him in 25 games after acquiring him at the trade deadline and his bat perked up late, but he’d be an expensive luxury as a backup to William Contreras. 

Behind those four, however, the Brewers have decisions to make on two of their biggest stars: 

Freddy Peralta 

The five-year, $15.5 million extension the Brewers gave to Peralta before the 2020 season has paid dividends several times over, but it’s coming up on its final encore: The deal included a club option for 2025 that the Brewers already exercised and one last $8 million club option for 2026. For what it’s worth, if the Brewers opted not to exercise it they wouldn’t owe Peralta a buyout. 

With that said, one final year at an $8 million salary is an incredible bargain for a pitcher who might get down-ballot Cy Young consideration in 2025. If he remains in Milwaukee Peralta will likely finish next season as the Brewers’ all-time strikeout leader, but even if they’re not going to keep him, they’d have to exercise his option to have the authority to trade him.  

William Contreras

When the Brewers signed William Contreras to a one-year deal to avoid arbitration for the 2025 season they included a club option for 2026 at $12 million (with a $100,000 buyout). Unlike most contract options, however, Contreras will remain under team control with the Brewers either way. Contreras is eligible for arbitration again this offseason, so if the Brewers decline his option he’ll be subject to that process. Last winter they did something similar, declining a club option on closer Devin Williams. Williams, who was later traded to the Yankees, got $8.6 million through arbitration instead of the $10.5 million in his club option. 

For Contreras the numbers might be a little closer. MLB Trade Rumors’ arbitration model predicts Contreras will get $11.1 million in arbitration this winter. That’s just a projection, of course, and the numbers could fluctuate from there. With that said, the Brewers will have to decide just how cautious they want to be with their relationship with Contreras and whether declining his option just to save less than a million dollars is a worthwhile investment. Contreras is still under team control through the 2027 season, if the Brewers don’t extend him beyond that.