FORT MYERS, Fla. — Willson Contreras already had a Red Sox duffle bag when he arrived at spring training this week.
“I couldn’t show up with (another team’s),” Contreras said with a smile.
Players typically receive team gear when they report. It’s not uncommon to walk into a clubhouse around the MLB trade deadline and see another team’s logos and colors on the belongings of a new arrival. Some players simply don’t feel the need to get rid of a quality piece of luggage, like Christian Arroyo, who reported to Mets camp in Port St. Lucie on Saturday with an old Red Sox bag slung over one shoulder.
The Red Sox acquired Contreras, 33, from the St. Louis Cardinals in late December. He has two seasons left on a five-year, $87.5 million contract that includes a team option for 2028.
Contreras asked Red Sox clubhouse attendants to have the gear sent to him ahead of camp. The three-time All-Star and 2016 World Series champion, who waived his no-trade clause for Boston, didn’t want to wait for this new chapter to start in even the smallest ways.
This new chapter will include a brief pause, however, so Contreras can check two special goals off his bucket list.
The veteran catcher-turned-first baseman will represent his native Venezuela in next month’s World Baseball Classic (though he’s still waiting for insurance approval). And he’ll do so alongside younger brother, William.
“It will be one of the best experiences that I have in my life,” Contreras said Saturday, during his first spring training media session. “Playing for Venezuela, with my brother, is one thing that we were looking (forward) to.”
Both will be firsts for Contreras. The 2017 WBC was months after his rookie season ended with the first Chicago Cubs World Series championship in 108 years. He abstained again in 2023 because he had just signed a five-year contract with the St. Louis Cardinals.
“I wanted to stay there to know the pitching staff, and basically half of them left (to play in the WBC),” the former catcher explained. “But this year I said yes from Day 1, and this one nobody’s taking away from me.”
The Contreras brothers never played on the same teams growing up, Willson said, because William is five years younger. They spent the last three seasons as National League Central rivals, with the exception of their selections to the 2022 All-Star Game.
“It was a dream come true for us,” Contreras said of the midsummer classic. “We came from Puerto Cavallo, Venezuela. We were two kids dreaming of getting to the big leagues, and then we got to the big leagues. Then dreaming of going to (the) All-Star Game, and we made it.”
Representing Venezuela with William “means a lot for me and my family,” Contreras said.
Venezuela is Contreras’ first home. The Red Sox already feel like a second one.
“What caught my attention was the chemistry that we already have in here,” Contreras said. “Even me, they made me feel like I’ve been here for years. And I have like, three days in here. … (They) treat me like (a) brother. Like, ‘We already know you, who you are.’”
“And that’s where everything starts,” the veteran explained. “You start in the clubhouse, you win the clubhouse, then you translate that from the clubhouse to the field.”
Contreras is a lifetime .258 average, .811 OPS hitter. Last season he made the transition from catcher to first base look easy. Certainly easier than it felt, he said. He ranked in the 91st MLB percentile in Outs Above Average and 77th percentile in Fielding Run Value.
It helped that the Cardinals had a legend in residence at spring training: the wonderful “Wizard of Oz.”
“Ozzie Smith, he showed up a couple times during my workouts and explained some of the angles, some of the stuff, and I asked him a lot of questions and that helped a lot,” Contreras said of the famed shortstop, whose Hall of Fame career included 13 consecutive Gold Glove seasons from 1980-92.
Smith was “amazing,” Contreras raved. “And you need to listen. If you don’t listen to that guy, you’re playing the wrong sport.”
The Wizard’s advice?
“Stay on your feet,” Contreras said. “Don’t stay flat-footed, stay ready.”
Contreras last caught a major league game in 2024, and isn’t expected to don his catcher’s gear this season. Wowed by Boston’s deep, elite pitching staff, which projects to be among the best in the game, Contreras isn’t so much jealous that he doesn’t get to catch them as he is grateful he doesn’t have to bat against them.
But if the Red Sox need him behind the dish, all they have to do is ask.
“My whole goal here is just help the team in any way I can,” Contreras said. “Team player. No ego. Try to win. Do my best.”
