What we learned from Chourio’s first week in MLB
Jackson Chourio’s first week in the major leagues is complete. The mosthyped prospect in Milwaukee Brewers history delivered in his first five games, batting .350 with a .931 OPS, one homer and one stolen base. Chourio’s first hit, stolen base and RBI came right away in his first career game, while he logged his first home run Wednesday.
By all accounts, that has to be considered a success.
Let’s look a bit deeper into Chourio’s much-anticipated debut to see what can be gleaned.
Chourio looks like he belongs
This seems simple but it might be most important. If there was any question as to whether Chourio would be overmatched as a 20-year-old in the majors, it sure doesn’t seem like he is.
There have been moments where Chourio looks like the youngest player in the league but still fewer of those than one would anticipate for his first week in the majors.
Those moments, too, are outweighed by his flashes of potential. As Brewers manager Pat Murphy mentioned, there’s at least one thing Chourio does each game that is eye-opening. Those moments have come in all facets of the game, from his defense to his hitting to his base running.
There is still a long way for Chourio to go but the Brewers have to be pleased with how comfortable he has looked right off the bat after signing a record extension.
Chourio’s speed is game-changing
As he grows into the league and learns what it takes to become a consistent contributor with both the bat and glove, Chourio’s speed provides a solid safety net.
At the plate, his approach is still a work in progress. So is pitch selection. Throughout his minor-league career, Chourio at times would show a proclivity of being overaggressive and jumping out at breaking balls, rolling them over to the left side of the infield. During his pregame media session Thursday, Murphy talked about how that approach is not going to be conducive to any type of sustained success.
Chourio’s speed, however, can still allow positive results.
For evidence of this, look no further than his second hit of the game on March 31. On a fairly routine grounder to third, Chourio busted it up the line to log a first-to-home time of 4.0 seconds – which is almost unheard of for a righthanded hitter – and beat the throw.
In the field, Chourio’s routes are not exactly Blake Perkins-level crisp. Chourio is a natural shortstop who moved to the outfield in 2021 and had never played right field until late in spring training. Now in right field every day, that inexperience sometimes shows when Chourio doesn’t get great reads on balls off the bat.
Yet, so far, Chourio hasn’t had a single misplay. That’s in large part due to his elite speed, which allows him to cover extensive ground if he doesn’t get a good jump initially.
Plate discipline is still a large work in progress
Chourio chases pitches out of the zone at a higher rate than anyone on the Brewers (44.2%) while only making contact on those pitches 57.9% of the time. His swinging strike rate (14.9%) is second-highest on the team behind only Oliver Dunn.
Of course, it’s early, but plate discipline metrics typically begin to stabilize much more quickly than surface numbers like batting average and OPS.
And those aren’t great metrics for Chourio to have, either.
As the league continues to learn about him and adjust to him, expect to see more and more breaking balls that dive off the plate.
This still isn’t yet a cause for alarm, however.
The good news is Chourio has yet to chase when ahead in the count, indicating he will still be able to do damage when he gets ahead and that he perhaps is a bit jumpy when he falls behind.
And anyone who watched Chourio early last year with Class AA Biloxi saw a similar early-season trend of being over-aggressive out of the zone. He eventually scaled that back drastically, cutting down his strikeout rates in a major way as the season went on.