2025 Brewers Prospect Preview: Blake Burke

[Jamie Cameron]

Spring training is here! It’s time to get reacquainted with the Brewers' 2024 draft class, ahead of their first full season of professional baseball in 2025.

Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

 

Draft Context, Scouting and Signing
Blake Burke was 49th on the Brewer Fanatic consensus draft board entering the 2024 draft, occupying spots ranking from the low 30s to the mid-60s on most industry boards. The Brewers liked what they saw from Burke, selecting him with the 34th overall pick (in the competitive-balance segment after the first round) and signing him to an under-slot bonus of $2.1 million.

Given his 2024 season, and how advanced Burke’s bat is, I found the pre-draft ranking discrepancy between his profile and other first base, power-oriented bats a little wide for my taste. Burke has legitimate bat speed that underpins an uppercut swing. It's all designed to lift the baseball. He has 70-grade raw power, and Burke put up gaudy exit velocities in 2024. His 110.5-mph 90th-percentile exit velocity was one of the very best in NCAA baseball, and he maxed out at 117 mph. He’s not pull-reliant, either. His 19% pulled fly ball rate was only in the 38th percentile in Div. I in 2024. Burke’s bat-to-ball skills are more advanced than you might suspect for a power-oriented bat. In 2024, there was some swing-and-miss in the strike zone (12.6%, right around average), but his overall contact rate of 83% was good for the 66th percentile, and he posted strong numbers outside the strike zone, too.

The bugaboo in Burke’s offensive profile is an extreme chase rate. He’s an aggressive hitter (51% swing rate), but he’ll need to tamp down a chase rate which in 2024 was north of 33%, as pitchers in the upper levels of the minors will take advantage of his eagerness. 

2024 Pro Debut: Strengths, Opportunities and Expectations for 2025
2024 Stats (NCAA): 72 games (323 PA), .379/.449/.702, 20 HR, 10.8 BB%, 14.9 K%, 147 wRC+
2024 Stats (A+): 5 games (18 PA), .250/.333/.250, 11.1 BB%, 22.2 K%, 78 wRC+

There’s not much to say on Burke’s 2024 pro debut, as it was so brief that our sample size is unreasonably small. Burke had an incredibly long college baseball season in 2024, playing 72 games for the eventual national champion Tennessee Volunteers. With a full offseason under his belt, I’d expect him to start at High-A Wisconsin in 2025. The Brewers will be hoping he makes short work of Appleton and rises to the upper levels of the minors by the end of the season. He’s a bat-reliant corner profile who will need to mash to provide value, but the building blocks are firmly in place for this outcome.

2025 Brewers Prospect Preview: Braylon Payne

 

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[jesusoftheapes]

Blake Burke is one of the wildest prospect I have ever been part of as a fan.   I watched Burke by accident last season and was super impressed by him a Tennessee when I watched only to really get excited when the Brewers then drafted him.     My brother and I on a board TV day started watching college baseball playoff series and tourneys and Tennessee happened to be a  major piece of airtime.    WE saw a lot of Tennessee baseball and Burke was THE Star of that baseball program.    Much like Nebraska's Gabe Swanson this year I saw Burke as the for sure MLB prospect to draft in 24' .    

 

The fact I got to watch him dominate as a hitter and defensive 1st basemen in live time is rare for prospects who get picked by the Brewers in the past .   So me getting to see him play college live was a crazy coincidence I am happy to see work out for my baseball team.    Blake Burke is going to be a great player for this organization and he totally fixes the constant question mark at 1st base the Brewers love to bring into every single season lately.          Burke should lock down 1st for this team for a long time when he gets himself ready for the Bigs.