Brewers: Yet Another Huge Promotion For Top Prospect Jackson Chourio

The Milwaukee Brewers have given yet another promotion to their top minor league prospect, outfielder Jackson Chourio.

It’s hard to believe that Jackson Chourio played in the Dominican Summer League just last year. Or that he wasn’t even assigned to an affiliate to begin the 2022 season. He began the year in Extended Spring Training, which is essentially where all of the Arizona Complex League players are until their official league season begins in June.

He was still in extended spring as of May 2nd. 133 days later, Jackson Chourio finds himself in Double-A as an 18 year old.

The Brewers have been aggressive in their promotions for 18 year old outfield prospect Jackson Chourio as he’s already up in Double-A Biloxi.

Once Chourio was promoted to Low-A Carolina, his prospect stock started rising almost immediately. He took the Carolina League by storm even as the youngest player in Low-A. With the Carolina Mudcats, Chourio batted a spectacular .324/.373/.600 with 23 doubles, five triples, and 12 homers.

He quickly earned a promotion to High-A Wisconsin, where he continued to rake. With the Timber Rattlers, Chourio batted .252/.317/.488 with six doubles and eight homers. His slash line numbers dropped, but the power was continuing to develop against much older competition. He also cut down his strikeout rate in High-A, which is very important. Putting up those numbers at just 18 years old at that level is quite impressive.

The Brewers clearly have been impressed enough to give Chourio yet another promotion, this time to Double-A to finish out the season. The High-A season is completed as of Sunday, but Double-A still has one more week remaining and Milwaukee is sending him there against much more advanced competition to finish out the year.

The jump from High-A to Double-A is a big one. Getting Chourio some ABs at this level before he heads into the offseason speaks volumes about what the Brewers think of him and what his timeline to the big leagues could look like.

The prevailing belief was that Chourio, should he stay on his current trajectory and performance level, would be likely to reach the big leagues in early 2024. However, with this recent promotion, perhaps that timeline might even be moved up a little bit. Granted, it’s only going to be one week in Double-A, but it says a lot that he was given this promotion.

No matter what happens this next week, Chourio is likely to begin 2023 in Double-A Biloxi again. From there, he’s likely to get an early-mid in-season promotion to Triple-A. From there, it really could be a matter of when the big league club needs him. Knowing how this Brewers offense has been historically, that could be practically anytime. Honestly, the Brewers might even be aggressive enough to promote him straight from Double-A, but that’s unlikely.

Milwaukee has a number of outfield prospects at the Triple-A level already, including Sal Frelick, Esteury Ruiz, and Joey Wiemer, along with Garrett Mitchell already in the big leagues. It’s likely that all four of those guys will get big league chances before the Brewers turn to Chourio.

Still, don’t rule out a big league promotion for Chourio sometime next season, perhaps even as a September call up.

Chourio is the Crew’s most exciting prospect to come around since the days of Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, and Prince Fielder. The Brewers are being aggressive with his promotions just like they were with those guys.