Almost four years ago, Major League Baseball teams embarked on the opening of the annual international signing period. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, it had been more than 18 months since the opening of the previous signing period, but finally the top Latin American prospects could sign on the dotted line.

Since that day in 2021, the Brewers have witnessed the rise of a potentially franchise-altering star. The results for the other 29 players who made MLB Pipeline’s top 30 international prospects for that class, however, shows just how big of an outlier Jackson Chourio is and why we should temper expectations for even the highest bonus international prospects.

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Chourio wasn’t the only player to sign with the Brewers that day. Milwaukee inked 26 players in total.

Fifteen of those have since been cut. Three were traded (Hendry Mendez, Gregory Barrios and Samuel Escudero, all of whom are still with the teams that traded for them). That leaves eight, including Chourio, still in the Brewers organization. The others are Jadher Areinamo, Patricio Aquino, Dikember Sanchez, Luis Castillo, Daniel Guilarte, Alexander Vallecillo and Edgardo Ordonez.

All in all, six players who have reached at least high-A, with all four of the hitters posting OPSs of at least .700 last season (with Areinamo, Barrios and Mendez joining Chourio).

So why am I discussing the Brewers signings in a blog about how the top-ranked DSL signings from that year fared? Well, it will become clear a little bit later.

Pipeline’s Top 30

Pipeline’s top 30 international prospects from the 2021 signing class can be broken up into three categories. We’ll save the largest, the teenage hitters for last.

The Older Cuban Prospects

Coming in at No. 1 and No. 6 on the list, Cubans Yoelqui Cespedes and Pedro Leon were both the oldest and among the biggest named prospects on the MLB Pipeline top 30.

Given that they were both at least 22 when they signed and were considered high level prospects, it is no surprise that both advanced to AAA in rapid fashion. What is surprising is that they then proceeded to just kind of stay there.

Leon, after nearly three full seasons in AAA, finally earned a spot on the Astros last season. He proceeded to tally two singles, one walk and 10 strikeouts in 21 big league at bats.

At least, however, Leon made the big leagues. Cespedes was released by the White Sox before the start of the 2024 season before struggling in Indy Ball as well.

The Pitchers

How often does the same team sign the top-rated hitter and the top-rated pitcher in a signing class? That’s what happened to the White Sox in 2021. Four years later, what do they have to show for it?

Nothing.

No MLB games played. No trade value in return. Just a bunch of dashed hopes.

Norge Vera, another Cuban, clocked in at 20th overall on Pipeline’s list and was the top pitcher. He was a couple years younger than Cespedes and Leon but was still 3-4 years older than most of the other players in the class when he signed.

A successful debut season had him up to No. 5 on the White Sox prospect list, but injuries and ineffectiveness eventually got him released in 2024. He is currently with the A’s organization.

The only other pitcher on the list was also the final one, with the Padres’ Victor Lizarraga slotting in at No. 30. Lizarraga has been, statistically at least, one of the biggest bright spots on the list. The only one of the teenage signings other than Chourio to spend the entire 2024 season at double-A or higher, Lizarraga spent the entirety of his age-20 season in the double-A rotation and more than held his own, posting a 4.03 ERA, an even better FIP and more than a strikeout per inning. A lack of fastball velocity keeps him from being considered a top prospect, but relative to most players on the list he has been a massive success.

The Teenage Hitters

The rest of the group, 26 in all, was composed of teenage hitters. Of those four spent most or all of the 2024 season still toiling in the complex leagues, with three of the four posting a sub-.600 OPS there.

Another 10 didn’t crack high-A, with all of them posting sub-.700 OPSs at low-A. That includes the Dodgers’ Wilman Diaz and the Rays’ Carlos Colmenarez, who were ranked second and third overall behind Cespedes. In total, of the 13 teenage hitters ranked above Chourio, only five have cracked high-A, and none of those performed all that well at that level.

Of the 12 remaining in this group, you can divide them into a few categories:

Guys Who Spent Most of the Year at Low-A

Three of the players fall into this group, with Cristian Hernandez of the Cubs and Dodgers catcher Jesus Galiz standing out for hitting well enough to deserve the promotion rather than it feeling like a last-ditch, we have to do something type move.

High-A, But With Mixed Results

Here you have five players, all of whom posted sub-.700 OPSs in high-A. Three really struggled, but two are a bit more nuanced. The Rockies’ Dyan Jorge supposedly has a fair amount of physical projection and has done just enough not to dash all hopes that he will reach it. The Twins' Danny De Andrade had a solid 2023 at low-A and was just below .700 when he got hurt and missed the rest of the season.

The Outlier

The only teenage position player signee other than Chourio to play most of the 2024 season at double-A is a curious case. After posting an 86 wRC+ in low-A in 2023, Denzer Guzman started 2024 with a 92 wRC+ in 84 high-A plate appearances, largely supported by a .451 BABIP given his 33% K rate and sub-5% walk rate. His team had seen enough, though, and promoted him to AA where he predictably struggled (83 wRC+ and a .601 OPS). Any guess which organization he plays for?

The High-A Successes

This group is led by Angel Genoa, the Guardians’ No. 4 prospect by Pipeline, coming in one spot behind Jackson Chourio’s brother Jaison. Genoa totaled an .840 OPS in high-A after starting the season demolishing low-A pitching.

The other member is the Giants’ No. 14 prospect Diego Velasquez, who tallied a .746 OPS in high-A before improving to .764 during a month-plus spent in AA.

Jackson Chourio

He stands alone.

So What Does This Mean?

Here are a few things to consider:

1. The Brewers signed 18 teenage hitters in 2021, which means that, including Chourio, 22% of the Brewers’ signings posted a .700+ OPS at high-A or above last season. Of the 26 teenage hitters in the top 30 list, only 11.5% can say the same thing. So you are almost twice as likely to get a player who meets that criteria choosing a random one of the Brewers’ signings than one from the Pipeline list. This isn’t to say the Brewers had four of the best signings. There are several really good prospects on other teams that didn’t make the top 30 list. It just means that making the top 30 isn’t close to a guarantee of success, even at the lower levels of the minor leagues.
2. The median performance from the teenage hitters on this list is roughly the same as two other Brewers from that signing class, Daniel Guilarte and Luis Castillo, and both of them have recently had seasons that were considered vaguely disappointing. To put it another way, Yophery Rodriguez has already experienced more success than over half of the teenage hitters on this list despite playing two fewer seasons.

The run the Brewers have been on is great, but statistically there are bound to be some guys like Johan Barrios and Kevin Ereu who take a bit longer to hit their stride or, as we can all remember from some of the earlier Brewers international signing classes, ones who just never do. So keep your expectations reasonable and be pleasantly surprised if another Chourio-type emerges (as seemed to be the case last season with Made and Pena). And remember, it is going to take a lot of whiffs for the Brewers’ post-pandemic success rate to even fall back to average.