Jackson Chourio Needs Another June Breakout. Is One on the Horizon?

Jackson Chourio's start to 2025 has been underwhelming. Losing all plate discipline and struggling to pick up breaking pitches, he's looked lost at the plate, despite his eight home runs. He's still running into occasional bombs, as he did against Garrett Crochet this week, but his OPS is steadily trending down. The problem, again, is chasing too much.

His rolling chase rates (by a 50-plate appearance sample) have regularly been above the 40% mark and have regressed there again recently. The problem is that these haven't always correlated with his production, because of how effectively he punished mistakes earlier in the season (although there is still some correlation).

Of course, if Chourio can force pitchers inside the strike zone, he should be able to do more damage with more hittable pitches. That would make sense, but it also seems like his confidence is just shot at the moment.

Despite a period of improved swing decisions recently, his hard-hit rates have plummeted over his last 90-plus batted balls, to a 10th percentile range. He's lost all confidence and conviction at the plate, meaning that even when pitchers give him something to hit, he's struggling to punish it.

There's nothing in his offensive skill set that's materially changed, other than his approach. His setup and swing are almost identical to 2024, but he's not meting out hit swings judiciously. It all points toward a player forcing it, in search of becoming the superstar Milwaukee craves. He got a taste of it in the postseason, and he has all the talent to perform at those levels again. 

With an under-confident player feeling that level of pressure, he'll be prone to overthinking—perhaps even a state of panic in the box. A short hot streak, or some Brewers wins will take some of the burden off him and perhaps allow him to relax and let the game come to him once more.

A new month brings a fresh slate, and with that, Chourios has a chance of repeating his scorching June of last year. He isn't showing signs of breaking out, but then, he didn't show many at this time last year, either. It just clicked, and nothing has changed (outside of his mind) to indicate that the exact same thing can't happen once again.

That being said, his results are showing clear decline and the confidence drop is more embedded than a mere dip. Chourio isn't able to slow the game down at the moment, even though his rapid hands should allow him all the time he needs to make good swing decisions.

It's there. He'll likely be all the better for this experience in the future. And he might just go nuclear once more, just when the Brewers really need his bat. However, right now, he isn't showing any signs of busting this long, drawn-out slump, save the occasional blast.