Jackson Chourio Will Hit Your Fastball Now, and Tell Stories About It One Day in Cooperstown

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

CRACK!

Hope you didn't take long to find your seat at Citi Field on Thursday night. If you did, you missed your first chance to glimpse greatness. Jackson Chourio hit Sean Manaea's first pitch through the left side of the infield for a single. He topped it a bit, in truth, and it was hit hard, but not searingly so. What stood out, if you did have your hot dog and your seat dried off and your head turned toward the plate, was just how violent a pass Chourio took at the pitch. His swing clocked in at 83.0 MPH. It's not unprecedented for a leadoff hitter to go up there with a malicious ambush in mind, but that's just the 11th time in the three-plus years of swing tracking that the first pitch of the game has been hit with that hard a swing for a hit of any kind. No one doubts Chourio's raw power—it's very impressive. But he's not normally going to show up on a list with guys like Kyle Schwarber, Nick Kurtz and Elly De La Cruz. Clearly, Chourio meant business.

Sure enough, when he came up in the second, he was ready to unload on the first pitch again. His swing was a hair less fast this time, but the result was even more impressive: an opposite-field two-run homer on a meatball of a heater.

By then, it should have been clear to you that you were in for one of those nights. The Mets, at least, must have felt it by then. Jacob Misiorowski was in control of things on the mound, and Chourio was on the attack.

In his third plate appearance, Chourio stayed on the attack. Having learned his lesson, though, Manaea refused to give him another fastball. The first three pitches were sweepers, of which Chourio fouled off the first two before laying off the third. Finally, Manaea showed him the fastball, way off the outer edge—just forcing him to think about something other than another big, roundhouse sweeper coming straight at him. That's what the fifth pitch was, and Chourio laid off that, too. On 3-2, Manaea refused to give in—but he had to land the sweeper closer to the zone. It still made its way in off the plate, and Chourio couldn't do what he'd done to that heater in the second on it, but he got around and found enough of the barrel to hit the ball squarely, living a one-hopper through the left side for his third hit of the night.

Xzavion Curry was the only Mets hurler who got Chourio out all night. He left a BP fastball up on a 1-1 count and got lucky: Chourio cut losse with a vicious cut but got just underneath it. Alas, the poor thing, he had to face Chourio again, trying to keep the game within range on a night on which he didn't have his best stuff and the Mets needed length. Curry nibbled in his second showdown with Chourio, working away, away, away. Finally, on his second 2-2 offering, he threw a fastball well above the zone over the inner half—but Chourio wasn't going to pop one up again. He hit a laser over the wall in left-center, for his second homer of the day.

Between his five turns and five hard-hit balls, Chourio made plays in the field, too. In the bottom of the fifth, he made a fine running catch on one line drive, and on another that was too far in front of him, he charged and picked a tricky in-between hop, then fired a one-hop strike to the plate for what could have been a run-saving out, but for a slightly errant swipe tag by Gary Sánchez. It was a wake-up call, for anyone still letting Chourio's greatness slip beneath their notice. This is a Hall of Famer in progress.

How Jackson Chourio Already Compares to the Best Young Hitters Ever

Perhaps that sounds like hyperbole. It isn't. The thing that makes baseball magical—that sucks you in and holds you in its hard blue glow all spring and summer and leaves you longing for it all winter, the same way you long for 9 PM sunsets—is its difficulty. Greatness is elusive, and it's hard-won, and sometimes, it's damnably subtle. The game defies solving, and it defies domination.

For young players, especially, it defies anyone who aspires to consistency. There's so much to learn and so much to suffer in the game that it takes almost everyone until at least their mid-20s to find consistency, even if they stumble upon brilliance sooner than that. To wit, only 15 players since World War II have put together three seasons with at least 400 plate appearances and an OPS+ of 110 or higher through their age-22 seasons. This is the list, in chronological order:

• Eddie Mathews
• Mickey Mantle
• Al Kaline
• Frank Robinson
• Orlando Cepeda
• Vada Pinson
• Tony Conigliaro
• Johnny Bench
• Ken Griffey Jr.
• Álex Rodríguez
• Mike Trout
• Bryce Harper
• Carlos Correa
• Juan Soto
• Chourio

Of this group, the only players who didn't go on to have Hall of Fame-worthy careers were Pinson, Conigliaro and Correa. Even those three had great, memorable careers, and but for injuries, each of them would probably be in (or, in Correa's case, en route there), too. Being a good hitter over this much playing time in the majors at this young an age is foolproof evidence of historic greatness.

Chourio is not quite on Pete Crow-Armstrong's level this season, given all the value Crow-Armstrong provides on defense and on the bases and the way he's rapidly matured at the plate. Then again, Chourio is just a couple weeks short of two years younger than Crow-Armstrong. When we say he hasn't had an MVP-caliber season yet, the emphasis belongs on the 'yet', rather than the 'hasn't'. That's coming. Thursday night was just the latest warning flare. Beware, rest of the league. Chourio is coming for you.

Jackson Chourio's Swing Adjustment Has Unlocked More Damage on Fastballs

Beyond this one game, though, there's a bigger trend to observe. Chourio hasn't just sustained the success he enjoyed as soon as he reached the majors; he's burgeoning. This has been by far his best season yet. After his outburst in the series-clinching win over the Mets, he's batting .283/.345/.477 on the season, which would mark career bests in all three stats. The key to that step forward is a tweak to Chourio's swing, which has made him more dangerous to all fields and better able to cover the whole arsenal of most opposing pitchers.

Here's a fastball Chourio saw against Boston's Garrett Crochet last season. It was right down the middle, on the first pitch of the at-bat, but Chourio only managed to foul it off.

Now, here's a similar heater from José A. Ferrer of the Mariners, from earlier this month. It's not some 450-foot homer, but Chourio hits this pitch for a clean and well-struck single.

We could cherry-pick one particular pitch from each of two seasons to tell whatever story we want, but in this case, the contrast between these outcomes reflects a true transformation. On fastballs right down the middle in 2025, Chourio realized -2 runs in context-neutral value. He whiffed on 16.1% of his swings on those pitches, and even when he didn't do that (or stare at a called strike), his barrel wasn't on time and on target enough to generate as much positive value as a hitter should get from that kind of offering. This season, he's whiffed on only 4.9% of his swings at fastballs down the middle, and he's created 9 runs of positive value, overall. That's not counting what he added by riding Manaea's juicy heater out of the park Thursday night.

To see the difference, let's put a couple of key moments within Chourio's swing side-by-side. First, here's the moment when Chourio's front heel lands in each swing. This is when he can start really hitting against his front side.

It's subtle, but look at his hips in each picture. He's begun to turn them more in the swing this year; he's building torque from his lower half earlier. Now, here's another telling moment, from just a frame or two later in each video.

This looks almost like two different moments in the swing, but I promise, it's functionally the same one in each. We can see the downstream effects of getting the hips turning around a stable core sooner: Chourio is more open with both his hips and his front shoulder on the right. But look at his hands, too. Last season, he was bringing them very low toward a pitch he read as being in the heart of the zone. That meant tucking his back elbow in very, very close to his side and flattening that back forearm, delaying any real power generation by the top hand until late in the stroke. This year, he's getting much earlier separation between hands and torso, and he's carrying the hands higher into the back part of the hitting zone. That means creating slightly more tilt from hands to barrel, and indeed, Chourio has a slightly steeper swing this year. He's slashing cleanly through the ball, in a way he couldn't quite do last season.

Because of that slightly earlier activation of his lower half and his core, Chourio is getting around and working up through the ball more this year. He's also catching the ball a couple inches farther in front of himself than he was last season. Yet, he's not pulling the ball any more often—the opposite. We're seeing him make major strides in power production and quality of contact, but he's pulling it in the air less often than ever, and far less than the league does, on average. For those at all versed in this kind of hitting analysis, that should raise an eyebrow. This isn't normal. Hitters who rotate earlier, extend earlier and catch it farther out front also pull it more. Why isn't that happening with Chourio?

Biomechanically, the explanation lies in that extra tilt. But there's a bigger explanation, too. Much of the change in Chourio's game this year lies not in his swing, but in how and when he's using it. His approach is as big an explainer of his evolution as his movements.

In general, Chourio is swinging less often this year, almost across the board. He's still at a stage of his career in which he goes through long periods with big chase rates, when he seems not to be seeing the ball well, but his plan is getting better, and his zone is getting tighter and better-controlled. Before swinging at the first pitch so zealously and often Thursday night, his early-count swing rates were notably down this season. He doesn't expand as often late in counts, either. As a result, he's walking more this season, and not just because the ABS system has reduced the size of the strike zone.

Specifically, though, Chourio has leaned into that steeper swing (literally, sometimes) by focusing more on pitches on the inner half, which tied him up with his former moves but which he can now hit squarely. He's not swinging more at pitches on the inner half, per se, but a greater percentage of the pitches he's swinging at are in that area, because he's really cut back on swings at pitches away—especially down and away.

That, again, makes sense. When you have what's still a flatter-than-average swing and have made the conscious choice to get steeper with it and to open up more as you swing, you need to focus on hammering stuff from the middle of the plate in, and leave alone the pitches your swing no longer suits. Indeed, the big gains Chourio has realized in terms of hitting the ball hard this year have nearly all come on pitches in—especially up and in.

But the secret to hitting inside pitching isn't to hook it, if you're a relatively flat swinger. Chourio has gotten steeper this year, but he's still a flat-swing guy. He's never going to be the one who buggy-whips underneath his front side and catches inside offerings far in front of himself. His swing tweaks (and a move of a couple inches away from the plate) have made enough room for him to put the barrel on inside pitches, and he can do it with his bat working uphill at the right angle to produce line drives and fly balls far more consistently than in the past. When he does so, though, the bat is usually still angled toward the opposite field; it's just how you keep hard contact fair when attacking inside pitching with this swing.

The modern game has trended away from opposite-field power, and toward optimized swings that focus on lifting and pulling. Most players have to go through that optimization process and succeed according to formula, to thrive against the caliber of pitching that now suffuses the league. Chourio, however, is not most hitters. He's a future Hall of Famer, just coming into his own. That means freaky talent, and a bigger menu of ways to be great than most players have. It means he can now hit your fastball, no matter how hard or where you throw it, and it means he's ready to anchor the Brewers' offense for a third October running. Just get him from here to there healthy.

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[keephopealive]

Loved me some Chourio last night, but I actually think that rather than consistent, he's been maddeningly inconsistent. He certainly has the raw tools to be a HoFer, but I think his first three years have been very different than the guys on the list, each of whom had show legitimate greatness by his age over an entire season. 

Matthews- age 21, 8.1 WAR, 2nd in MVP voting
Mantle - age 20, 6.3 WAR, 3rd in MVP
Kaline - age 20, 8.3 WAR, 2nd in MVP
Robinson - age 20, 6.6 WAR, 7th
Bench - age 22, 7.4 WAR, MVP
ARod - age 20, 9.4 WAR, 2nd
Trout - age 20, 10.5 WAR, 2nd
Harper - age 22, 9.7 WAR, MVP
Soto - age 22, 7.3 WAR, 2nd

Yes, he's had some injuries, but we'll be happy if Chourio gets to 5 WAR. More to his inconsistency, much of his production was the six HRs in a week in three weeks. The week where he won player of the week in late May, the week with six HRs in early June, the week in early August with 4 HRs, and then last night.  Stretches where he's looked like the best player in baseball, followed by maddening stretches.  None of this is saying he won't be a HoFer, but just that he's not shown it yet.