Brewer Fanatic 2024 Offseason Top 20 Prospects - No. 6: Jesús Made

[Spencer Michaelis]

Welcome back to Brewer Fanatic's 2024 top 20 prospect breakdown! In this edition, we will be taking a close look at Jesus Made, who comes in as the No. 6 prospect in the system, as voted on and compiled by the Brewer Fanatic community.

Image courtesy of Milwaukee Brewers

#6 Jesus Made (Dominican Summer League Brewers)

Signed out of the Dominican Republic in the 2024 class, Made was ranked 22nd in his class by MLB Pipeline and was given the second largest bonus in the Brewers class at $950,000. Because of this, he went into the season with some hype surrounding him. By the time the season was over he had posted some of the best surface-level stats in the Dominican Summer League, and was being touted as having the potential to be a future number one prospect in all of baseball. Even Jackson Chourio had to wait for his full season debut to start getting his name into those types of talks. Made brings a fantastic blend of analytical data, as well as strong praise from traditional scouts who had eyes on him.

What to Like:
Made’s surface-level production in the DSL is certainly noteworthy. His 169 wRC+ placed him eighth in the entire league and he did that as the youngest player in the top eight. What stands out more than the surface production though is the means by which he got to it. He showed flashes of all five major tools on his way to being named Co-Brewers Player of the Year.

Starting on the baserunning side, Made is said to have plus speed presently. He also appears to have the type of build that should allow him to maintain that speed even as he adds more muscle. He showed his wheels off by stealing 28 bases while only being caught four times in 2024.

Posting a 90th percentile exit velocity of 103.9 MPH would have been above average for a Triple-A player, and Made did it as a seventeen year old. According to Baseball America, that number would have ranked third overall for seventeen year olds in 2023. His 47% hard-hit rate shows that he can get to that hard contact with consistency as well. More than anything else, this all shows that Made possesses big power potential, which he also showed by hitting six home runs in the DSL. A number that tied him for fifth all time among Brewers DSL players.

The potential of that power and speed combination, from a switch-hitting shortstop, would have been enough for evaluators to take notice on its own. What put Made on the radar of Top 100 lists so quickly was the fact that he showed both of those tools, while also showing the potential for a plus hit tool.

Made’s bat to ball ability was elite in the DSL. Made had a whiff rate of 11%, a number that puts him close to the 100th percentile in all of MiLB. He was even better on pitches in the zone, as he had an in-zone whiff rate of only 8%. Not only did he show an ability to put the bat on the ball, he also showed an ability to differentiate between balls and strikes at an elite level. His 15% chase rate would have been the best in all of MLB. Of course, he should never be expected to be able to maintain that number as he climbs higher and higher, but simply for comparison’s sake it shows how impressive that chase rate is. All of those tools showed up in the strikeout and walk numbers, in which he walked 39 times in comparison to only 28 strikeouts. 

On the defensive side, Made is expected to be given a chance to stick at shortstop, though scouts do worry that he may have to move off of the position as he continues to mature into his body. His arm is said to be plus, and thus third base is seen as a potential landing spot for him down the road. Given his speed, a move to centerfield is also seen as a possible outcome, but the preference is for him to remain on the infield dirt for now.

What to Work On:
One of the biggest things that could hold Made back from having a plus hit tool is if he continues to hit the ball on the ground at a similar rate to what he did in 2024. His 49.6% ground ball rate put him in the 15th-percentile in MiLB, and once he’s playing against better infield defense it will likely lead to a much lower BABIP than the .369 mark he posted in the DSL. While he has incredibly fast hands for his age, there is a lot of pre-swing movement with the hands that could cause some timing issues against more velocity. As Brewers fans have seen with Christian Yelich, being slightly off on your timing can cause a high ground ball rate, even if you’re still getting the barrel to the ball. Overall, Made’s batted ball profile will likely need to improve a bit for him to reach his absolute ceiling as a hitter. 

Outside of that, the one main thing to watch with Made is simply his youth. Young players come with inherent risks, mainly due to lack of experience. He hasn’t faced much adversity in his career yet, nor has he ever had this much attention on him. How a player responds to a long slump can tell us a lot about their future. Another issue you can run into with a young player is an inability to adjust once the “book is out on them”, which Brewers fans saw with a Keston Hiura, for example. Hiura never played at a level long enough to have pitchers find the holes in his swing, but they showed up eventually. Made’s plate discipline numbers and bat to ball skills seem to point to that being an unlikely problem for him specifically, but these are the types of things that can suddenly pop up for young players.

What’s next:
Made appears to be headed for a full-season ball debut with Carolina in 2025. Given his birthday is in May, he might make that debut as a seventeen year old. Meaning he would have made it to Carolina faster than Jackson Chourio, who had turned eighteen a couple months before he made his Low-A debut. Made still has room to grow into his body and will likely be focused on that this offseason.

The odds of the Brewers finding two Jackson Chourio level prospects in a span of only a few years are very low, and yet… They may have another one in Made. We will know more about him by this time next year. There is an outside chance that he’s not only the number one prospect on this list in 2025, but potentially the number one prospect in baseball.

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What are your thoughts on Made? What are you hoping to see from him in 2025? Let us know in the comments!

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[SF70]

Incredible job of mining talent by our International department. Quero-Chourio & the 2024 IFA class has been franchise-altering.

It’s been franchise-altering because it’s allowed the team to procure prospect talent as good as there is in this game through a prospect-procurement system without a draft order.

Acquiring top 5 prospect talent from a team consistently picking in the back half of the draft isn’t likely to happen, but with the international realm, it is happening, and that’s likely going to lead to a future top farm system and eventually transfer to the big-club.

Reading what the scouts have said regarding Made, including BA, who has called him a future potential #1 prospect has me over the moon excited about the future of this team moving-forward.
 

The sky’s the limit with this team’s prospect-procurement abilities 

[snoogans8056]

I’d love to know how we were viewed by international prospects / their handlers even two years ago compared to now.

It sure seems like we’ve built up the connections, and now the reputation is there as well. I wonder what this whole operation looks like once the Chourio / Made snowball really starts rolling down hill.

[Joseph Zarr]

My personal opinion on the jam-packed treasure trove of talent inherent in Madé's complete package of a game is we will collectively look back at this next season and ponder how he wasn't the unanimous number one prospect on this list. Yes, he appears to absolutely be that good. You just do not see the type of peripherals and industry-wide sentiments and write-ups on players like this all that often. By every stretch of the imagination, he is a Unicorn. And, it turns out, and I can't believe I'm typing this, he may be an even better player than OF Jackson Chourio was at this stage of his career. I had heard some of the early rumblings from down in the Dominican before the season started. Hence, it is why I got out at the very onset of the summer with this presumptive headline in our Minor League daily Game Thread back on June 8th...it's also why I bought each and every one of his Dominican League rookie cards and grabbed several autographed cards. Dream Big, I say! 😅

[Ron750]

It’s a long hard road to the big leagues. It worked out great with  Chourio. It didn’t work with Keston Hiura. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. 

[sveumrules]

17 minutes ago, Ron750 said:

It’s a long hard road to the big leagues. It worked out great with  Chourio. It didn’t work with Keston Hiura. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. 

Big difference between Chourio and Hiura is that Jackson had an advanced and diversified skillset that allowed him to put up a productive MLB season at age 20.

At age 20 Hiura was still hitting with an aluminum bat at UC-Irvine before a cameo in A ball after getting drafted.

It will still be a long hard road for sure, and I'd never expect another Chourio-like ascent from anyone, but Jesus has a lot more in common with Jackson than Keston at this point.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

To average almost 104 MPH exit velocity, while walking 39 times to 28 K? At seventeen? You just don't see that. Heck, he may be in Appleton before next season concludes.

[BrewCrewBlueDevil]

High A Wisconsin in 2025 at 18

AA Biloxi in 2026 at 19

AAA Nashville and MLB Milwaukee at 20

Jesus Made will follow the Chourio path.

 

[CheeseheadInQC]

I am trying to imagine what my expectations would be for Made pre-Chourio and set them there. Unless I am missing someone, Yophery Rodriguez was arguably the third best performer from his signing class last season behind two guys who are probably their organizations’ top prospects, and yet his season still felt vaguely disappointing at times in a way I don’t think it would have a couple of years ago, and that really isn’t fair.

[Matt]

9 hours ago, Joseph Zarr said:

My personal opinion on the jam-packed treasure trove of talent inherent in Madé's complete package of a game is we will collectively look back at this next season and ponder how he wasn't the unanimous number one prospect on this list.

TBH I was wondering that last month when the lists started coming out. 

But I'm a bit lower on some of the higher ranked guys in the org too. Hope I'm wrong on them.

[BrewerFan]

19 hours ago, SF70 said:

Incredible job of mining talent by our International department. Quero-Chourio & the 2024 IFA class has been franchise-altering.

It’s been franchise-altering because it’s allowed the team to procure prospect talent as good as there is in this game through a prospect-procurement system without a draft order.

Acquiring top 5 prospect talent from a team consistently picking in the back half of the draft isn’t likely to happen, but with the international realm, it is happening, and that’s likely going to lead to a future top farm system and eventually transfer to the big-club.

Reading what the scouts have said regarding Made, including BA, who has called him a future potential #1 prospect has me over the moon excited about the future of this team moving-forward.
 

The sky’s the limit with this team’s prospect-procurement abilities 

Made was my #2. I couldn't get mine in as...for some reason this site freezes up on me(maybe it's the brevity with which I post😉)...butI think the 2025 mid or final top 100 list will have Made and Pratt top 15-20, perhaps along with Quero. Mis will be in the ~30 range as I don't think he can answer questions about his ability to start in one year. And then there are so many options. Bitonti, Knoth, Letson, Henderson, Adams, Lara, Yophery, they'll be top 100 on various lists(or close). Pena and Anderson could make big moves. 

 

And then the one guy I'm really surprised to see people so high on, Burke. Described as having the best power in the system and a very underrated hit tool with plus defense at 1B...I think we're going to see a year where we don't have a ton of significant contributions from the minors outside of some relievers.

But the following year we'll be looking at a couple of SS in AA and AAA and I really think our farm system will look like the Os going into this year but with more pitching...

 

Jesus Made...13 year 81M extension now and get the two option years at 22M per!

-I'm kidding, but I think he could be the damn near perfect compliment to Chourio...

[Playing Catch]

Could be similar to when Cleveland had Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

8 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

 Bitonti, Knoth, Letson, Henderson, Adams, Lara, Yophery, they'll be top 100 on various lists(or close). Pena and Anderson could make big moves. 

 

 

I know he doesn't project to hit for much power, but I believe I'd put Pena on the list with the above seven you mentioned. And with his hit tool & patience at the plate I'm antsy to see what Adams looks like as he climbs. Burke has always kinda flown under the radar for me. Can't wait to see a full season of pro ball from him.

[Spencer Michaelis]

10 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

I know he doesn't project to hit for much power, but I believe I'd put Pena on the list with the above seven you mentioned. And with his hit tool & patience at the plate I'm antsy to see what Adams looks like as he climbs. Burke has always kinda flown under the radar for me. Can't wait to see a full season of pro ball from him.

FWIW, some scouts are actually projecting Pena for above average to even plus power as he grows into his body more. He has the type of batted ball profile that simply needs more juice behind the ball to start clearing walls. He’s already shown 104 MPH EV’s in games and a better than average 90th percentile EV for his age, while still being quite skinny too. 

[SF70]

I read more than 1 scout that thought Pena a better prospect than Made. 
 

The ‘24 IFA class just keeps getting better after reading Badlers analysis of Quintana’s defense at SS., with his opinion being he can stick there moving forward, and his improvement in the box as the season moved along.

Then with BA’s analysis of Quintana & Anderson’s having excellent swing decisions — wow, just wow.

[wibadgers23]

So do we think Made and Pena are locks to start the year in Carolina (as opposed to the ACL).

[Spencer Michaelis]

34 minutes ago, wibadgers23 said:

So do we think Made and Pena are locks to start the year in Carolina (as opposed to the ACL).

I think they probably will. Made feels like a lock, Pena probably close to one. But there is a lot of infield depth in the system currently so you never know how it will shake out.

[sveumrules]

14 minutes ago, Spencer Michaelis said:

I think they probably will. Made feels like a lock, Pena probably close to one. But there is a lot of infield depth in the system currently so you never know how it will shake out.

Think Bitonti’s placement could play a role in this too.

He had a pretty solid showing to end the summer at Carolina with 132 PAs of 131 wRC+, which ranked 3rd out of only 15 players in the league who got at least 100 PAs in their age 18 or younger season.

Pretty impressive stuff, but it also came with a .221 AVG and 29.5 K% under the hood so they might want to start him back in Carolina to show a better contact profile before hitting the Midwest League.

If he is in Wisco, it makes it a lot easier to start both of Made/Peña in Carolina.

Even if Bitonti does open a TRat though, is there enough time for all of Made. Peña, Adamczewski, Di Turi, and Tyler Rodriguez (130 wRC+ as an 18yo in the ACL last year playing mostly SS) in the Carolina infield?

Especially after the BA article noting his swing decisions, could also maybe see Jose Anderson skipping Arizona and going straight to the Carolina OF.

[Joseph Zarr]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

Think Bitonti’s placement could play a role in this too.

He had a pretty solid showing to end the summer at Carolina with 132 PAs of 131 wRC+, which ranked 3rd out of only 15 players in the league who got at least 100 PAs in their age 18 or younger season.

Pretty impressive stuff, but it also came with a .221 AVG and 29.5 K% under the hood so they might want to start him back in Carolina to show a better contact profile before hitting the Midwest League.

If he is in Wisco, it makes it a lot easier to start both of Made/Peña in Carolina.

Even if Bitonti does open a TRat though, is there enough time for all of Made. Peña, Adamczewski, Di Turi, and Tyler Rodriguez (130 wRC+ as an 18yo in the ACL last year playing mostly SS) in the Carolina infield?

Especially after the BA article noting his swing decisions, could also maybe see Jose Anderson skipping Arizona and going straight to the Carolina OF.

Which brings me to: I was left wanting much more of the young and intriguing Adamczewski who flashed consistently before season ending injuries. I imagine, however, as he ages and progresses he is going to need to develop a modicum of positional flexibility. He didn't appear to have the lateral agility and range to handle a spot SS assignment at this level but I certainly could be wrong. We didn't get a chance to see it in Carolina which probably tells us where he is in that greater organizational SS depth chart. Can he handle a 3B assignment? Is he going to get any reps in the corner OF spots? The bat absolutely looked advanced which is a massive plus. Serious potential in that lumber. And, boy, it was hard to leave the season feeling confident about Di Turi. Nearly everything he was doing at Carolina felt a step too slow. His second season will be crucial for his standing in the organization. 

[CheeseheadInQC]

1 hour ago, Joseph Zarr said:

Which brings me to: I was left wanting much more of the young and intriguing Adamczewski who flashed consistently before season ending injuries. I imagine, however, as he ages and progresses he is going to need to develop a modicum of positional flexibility. He didn't appear to have the lateral agility and range to handle a spot SS assignment at this level but I certainly could be wrong. We didn't get a chance to see it in Carolina which probably tells us where he is in that greater organizational SS depth chart. Can he handle a 3B assignment? Is he going to get any reps in the corner OF spots? The bat absolutely looked advanced which is a massive plus. Serious potential in that lumber. And, boy, it was hard to leave the season feeling confident about Di Turi. Nearly everything he was doing at Carolina felt a step too slow. His second season will be crucial for his standing in the organization. 

If they didn’t play him at short in the ACL while Rodriguez and Alastre were struggling there, I doubt they view that as an option. It would be interesting to know what they view his alternative position as, though.

[Playing Catch]

On 11/3/2024 at 6:21 AM, SF70 said:

I read more than 1 scout that thought Pena a better prospect than Made. 
 

The ‘24 IFA class just keeps getting better after reading Badlers analysis of Quintana’s defense at SS., with his opinion being he can stick there moving forward, and his improvement in the box as the season moved along.

Then with BA’s analysis of Quintana & Anderson’s having excellent swing decisions — wow, just wow.

I've posited before that the Brewers are beginning to garner significant trust from the larger scouting community. While that is no doubt deserved, I also wonder if that trust provides an artificial "bump" in their opinions of Brewers prospects.

[SF70]

13 minutes ago, Playing Catch said:

I've posited before that the Brewers are beginning to garner significant trust from the larger scouting community. While that is no doubt deserved, I also wonder if that trust provides an artificial "bump" in their opinions of Brewers prospects.

Hadn’t really thought of that before.

All I know is the job the team’s amateur scouts have done with baseball’s last 3 signing classes has been otherworldly.

And not just the ‘23 draft and ‘24 IFA classes, but Payne taking-off early and Burke getting some love from Chris Clegg making the early returns on the ‘24 class looking better than some thought.