How 20-Year-Old Hitters Like Jackson Chourio Have Done in Past Octobers

Since 1974, there are just 10 players who have taken at least five postseason plate appearances at age 20 or younger. This October, Jackson Chourio will join that group--though he might not even be the only player to do so, with Jackson Holliday establishing himself as a part of the Orioles mix. Impressively, three of the 10 have been fairly important parts of teams who won the World Series. Could Chourio become fourth on that list?

For posterity's sake, let's run through the playoff stories of these players.

Claudell Washington
After coming up at age 19 in July 1974, Washington settled first into a platoon with Joe Rudi in left field, then as the designated hitter for the two-time defending champion Oakland A's. He didn't hit a home run in 237 plate appearances in the second half of that season, but he still maintained an above-average batting line, and in the ALCS and World Series, he batted .389/.450/.444 in 20 plate appearances. Contributing as a platoon and bench bat while barely past his teens, Washington still added positive championship win probability, and the A's finished their threepeat. 

Andruw Jones
Called up early in 1996 but unable to immediately establish himself, Jones was an afterthought heading into the playoffs. By the middle of the NLCS, he was a staple of the lineup, and he had one of the loudest World Series debuts in history, hitting two home runs as a teenager in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium. Atlanta couldn't finish off its bid for a second straight Series win, but Jones was on the map for good. He would appear in his second postseason at age 20, in 1997.

Miguel Cabrera
Like Washington and Jones, Cabrera came up mid-season in his age-20 campaign. Unlike them (but very much like Chourio, his fellow Venezuelan), he was a vital organ of the lineup by the time his team began its playoff run. In three series that stretched pretty deep, Cabrera piled up 74 plate appearances that magical October. He hit four home runs, including a three-run shot in the first inning of Game 7 in the NLCS that set the tone for the Marlins finishing off the Cubs to win the pennant. They went on to win the World Series.

Justin Upton
A latecomer to the Arizona roster in 2007, Upton celebrated his 20th birthday a few weeks after making his debut. By season's end, he'd earned regular playing time in a dynamic Diamondbacks outfield, and there were times during that October when he looked like the best player on the field. The Rockies ultimately knocked out their division rivals in the NLCS, but Upton got on base 10 times in 19 trips to the plate. There's probably no more directly comparable player to Chourio on this list than that year's version of Upton.

Manny Machado
Yet another player who came up in August the year he got a chance to take on the league in the playoffs, Machado chipped in nicely for the relentlessly surprising, improbable 2012 Orioles. Yankees pitching stumped him in the ALDS that season, though. He didn't fully come into his own at the plate until the ensuing season.

Bryce Harper
He didn't even turn 20 until after the Nationals had been eliminated. Harper came up fairly early in his age-19 season, played like his hair was on fire, and gave several glimpses of his future as one of the game's lethal power hitters. He didn't get his feet under him in the NLDS until Game 5, though, and Cardinals Devil Magic was too much for him. He tripled and homered that night, but the Nationals lost and were sent home.

Rafael Devers
The last in a wave of young talent the Red Sox promoted over about half a decade that netted them two World Series titles, Devers came up in August and was a semi-regular by the time the playoffs rolled around. He, too, got going in the latter half of a Division Series matchup, cranking a pair of homers and giving the Astros multiple scares in the two games played at Fenway Park during that series, but Houston banged away at Red Sox pitching and marched on to the Series, sending the Sox home a fortnight before Devers turned 21.

Ronald Acuna, Jr.
Already the face of Atlanta's return to prominence after a half-decade of voluntary suckitude, Acuna announced himself as the symbol of a new dynasty with a grand slam in Game 3 of the team's NLDS matchup with the Dodgers, their first home playoff game in half a decade. It wasn't nearly enough to get his team past their superior opponents, but it was a shot across the bow for the rest of the National League East. This season looks like it will be the first since then in which anyone else will win the division. Chourio is very much an Acuna-caliber player; the Brewers can take heart from the fact that there's no 2018 Dodgers-caliber team awaiting them in October.

Juan Soto
It's not a fun memory for Brewers fans, but Soto made himself a massive, permanent national celebrity with his 2019 playoff run, which began with that game-winning bounce against the Brewers in the Wild Card Game. That play touched off a 17-game, 75-plate appearance postseason coming-out party in which Soto posted a .927 OPS, won a win-or-go-home game on the road (Game 5 of the NLDS in Los Angeles) almost by himself, and clubbed three World Series homers, en route to a title.

Wander Franco
The less said and remembered of him, the better. Franco was an extraordinary baseball talent, and is an important example of the ways in which baseball is a relatively small thing, when one zooms out to consider the enormity of evil in our world. Let's not even review his actual showing.

Acuna and Upton jump out as having comparable skill sets to Chourio, but the only player on this list who accrued the kind of experience Chourio will have in the majors before making their first trip to the playoffs is Soto. He's important to this team in a way only Soto, Harper, and Acuna were to theirs, when they got to October. It will be fascinating--and, hopefully, thrilling--to see how Chourio handles this rare opportunity and monumental challenge. He could become one of the game's biggest stars, and end one of the league's longest title droughts, if he can meet the moment the way a few of these players have.