Camp Storylines: Is Jackson Chourio a Legit Big-Leaguer Now?

It makes sense that a player with a record-breaking contract extension has high expectations. Meant to be the future face of the franchise, Jackson Chourio is an exceptionally well-rounded talent with incredible speed and fielding. He played an outstanding center field in Double A last year and stole 43 bases, earning his 70-grade run tool and a minor-league Gold Glove for his troubles. Expanding on these tools, MLB.com had this to say:

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With plus-plus speed, Chourio pushed the envelope more than ever on the bases last season. He’s more than capable of tracking down balls in the gaps as a center fielder, though he still needs work going aggressively into the walls. And while elbow trouble early in his career limited his arm strength, the Brewers gave him some looks in right.

Offensively, he had a strong slash line of .280/.336/.467 over 559 plate appearances but that only tells part of the story. He also had a strikeout rate of 18.4% with a walk rate of 7.3%, notably walking at a much higher 10.8% when facing lefty pitching. 

While we don’t have a ton of great data on things like slugging percentage by zone or exit velocity for Double A, we do have spray charts and boy do they thicken the plot. While many players tend to land most of their batted balls and home runs to one side of the ballpark, Chourio is truly capable of hitting to all parts of the field, making it difficult for opposing defenders to position against him. Here’s a spray chart for all of his hits with the Shuckers in 2023. 

While one might expect a power righty to pull most of home runs to left field, Chourio defies expectations and has roughly the same amount of home runs on both sides. Many of his singles actually went up the middle to right field. 

If he does make the opening day roster and sticks around, we’ll get to see how he adjusts the major league pitching, quite the step up from Double A. We got a taste of how much he’s already improved this offseason by seeing him post a .984 OPS over 75 plate appearances in the Venezuelan Winter League, a big improvement over the .644 OPS he posted in the same league last year. He has also played in just one spring training game thus far, going 2-for-4 with two RBI against the Padres. 

For the season ahead, ZiPS has him projected to slash .263/.306/.408 for a slightly below-average wRC+ of 92, but has incredible long-term numbers according to Dan Szymborski. This is an important note, as it can be easy to forget that he’ll be a fresh-faced 20-year old on opening day and his contract is an investment into the future. Chourio has a long way to go, but he’s a top prospect for a reason. It won’t be long before he earns the title of “legit” big-leaguer.

How do you think Chourio will perform in his rookie year? What do you think are his main areas of improvement? Let us know in the comments?