Last year, Willson Contreras watched the Cubs’ playoff run from afar, with other prospects in the Arizona Fall League in Mesa, Ariz.

Along with about 90 other players, he took in the wild card game from the team’s Arizona complex, where they hooted and hollered as rookie Kyle Schwarber slugged a three-run homer in the 4-0 win over Pittsburgh.

The year prior, Schwarber was playing in the Arizona Fall League. So it was a bit of a carrot to the assembled prospects: you never know when it’s your time.

While Contreras watched Schwarber go deep last October, his focus was on Jake Arrieta in the wild card game and Jon Lester in the opening game of the National League Division Series.

You might not have expected Contreras to be starting for Cubs this season, but he didn’t just imagine it, he started preparing himself.

“Arrieta was pitching and I put myself behind the plate,” he said. “When Lester pitched I put myself behind the plate too, trying to call pitches and trying to figure out what he’s doing with the hitters.”

Contreras has followed Schwarber to the majors — “He’s an amazing guy with a lot of power,” Contreras said of Schwarber. “He’s going to hit a lot of homers in the big leagues.” — but unlike Schwarber, he’ll get to catch in the postseason.

Some of that mental preparation was for naught, as Contreras won’t catch Lester, obviously, and it looks like Miguel Montero will mostly catch Arrieta.

Contreras should get the call for both Kyle Hendricks and John Lackey, however. So he has to be ready.

Much has been made about Contreras’ difficulty framing low strikes for Arrieta. It’s not nitpicking. Contreras admits it’s difficult. That’s why guys like David Ross stick around into their late 30s. It takes time, and thousands of innings, to learn the one position that’s really a craft.

“He’s really into the all the cerebral stuff, the reports, trying to understand the game at this level,” catching coach Mike Borzello told me earlier this summer. “We want him understand you don’t understand those things over night.”

According to Baseball Prospectus, Contreras struggled with his framing last season in the minors, posting -6.4 framing runs. That number would be good for 91st out of 104 eligible catchers in the bigs this season. However, in 2016 he’s up to 3.5 framing runs, 25th in the league. While there are still little issues that need to be cleaned up, he’s clearly learning and improving at an impressive rate.

While that takes discipline, Contreras, signed out of Venezuela as a teenager by Jim Hendry’s regime in 2009, is also known for being an excitable player, which is part of his charm. After the Cubs converted him from infielder to catcher back in 2012 in Class-A Boise, he was supposedly fist-pumping strikeouts in the first inning like “it was Game 7 of the World Series,” according to a Cubs source. Contreras doesn’t get quite that hyped anymore, but he does make baseball fun again.

“He’s hyper,” Javy Baez told me earlier this season. “He’s very loud, if you want to say that.”

Cubs catcher Willson Contreras reacts after tagging out St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Aledmys Diaz during a game at Wrigley Field this seeason. (David Banks/USA TODAY Sports)

He definitely knows how to get the crowd fired up after throwing out a runner or applying a tag at home plate.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve always been playing with my emotion,” Contreras said. “That’s who I am, that’s who I’m going to be all my whole career. I play with my emotions. If I play without my emotion, I won’t be the same player.”

If there’s one team that lets you be yourself, it’s the Cubs. Contreras’ success is a testament to the organization, but also to the catcher’s inner confidence.

“You wouldn’t want to change somebody until something needs to be changed,” Borzello said. “His personality is what makes him the player he is too.”

But when he’s catching Arrieta, or Hendricks, he has to be emotionless and he’s working on it.

“Once you know how to slow the game down, you know you have to be a good framer for pitches,” he said. “Especially when you catch Arrieta, because he has a lot of movement, when you catch Hendricks, when you catch CJ Edwards because he has a cutter. You have to be like dead behind the plate.”

I like that. Like dead behind the plate.

Contreras talks a lot with Montero, who has acted as a mentor, and he also gets advice from relievers Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop. What do they tell him?

“To not be afraid to call my pitches,” he said. “Because sometimes pitchers want to throw whatever they want. Don’t be afraid to go to them and give them advice or ask them to throw what pitches. Don’t be afraid to do things.”

Cubs starting pitcher Jason Hammel and catcher Willson Contreras meet on the mound during the first inning against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field. (Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports)

If Contreras didn’t slump offensively after a hot start, you wonder if the Cubs would’ve cut bait with Montero, who was struggling hitting and throwing. (He wondered that too.) In his first 22 games (19 starts) Contreras had a slash line of .312/.398/.584 after a two-hit game against Pittsburgh on July 9.



From July 10 through Aug. 10, just to throw out some arbitrary dates, he played in 22 games and started 21, and slashed .221/.302/.299.

Over his next 22 games, those numbers ticked up to .254/.316/.465. Contreras (.272/.348/.472) is hitting even better over the last 10 days. So he’s going into the playoffs on a decent roll.

“I think, to me, that’s normal,” he said of his ups and downs at the plate. “I don’t put pressure on myself for hitting.”

He’ll be the first rookie catcher to start in a playoff series for the Cubs since Geovany Soto did in 2007 and 2008. (OK, there was one playoff season in between.)

In 2007, Soto only played twice before September, but wound up on the playoff roster and started two of the three games in the NLDS. He went 1-for-6 with a two-run homer in Game 2, an 8-4 loss to Arizona.

The next season, Soto was the Rookie of the Year, but he went 2-for-11 with a double as the Cubs were swept out of another playoff series, this time by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

No one, least of all him, knows how Contreras will perform in the postseason. It’s the biggest unknown in sports. But even if he’s only starting a game or two a series, he’s ready to find out.