'He has the promise': Prospect Made may be on Chourio-like path to Majors

PHOENIX -- The next big thing in the Minor League system that propelled Brewers rookie Jackson Chourio to a 20-20 season in the big leagues at age 20 is Jesús Made, a 17-year-old, switch-hitting shortstop from San Cristobal in the Dominican Republic who inherited a love of baseball from his father. Already, he’s poised to blow past what Dad was able to do on the field.

Maximo Made was a middle infielder who played professionally for Cleveland. He played one season stateside at Short Season-A Mahoning Valley (Ohio) in 2001, batting .204 with one homer. It was as far as he’d go in organized ball.

“I started playing baseball when I was 3 years old and it was my dad that taught me the way,” said Jesús, who was born in 2007. “I just always loved baseball from the beginning. I consider myself an energetic player, a smart player, and I just want to continue to get better.”

He’s on the right path.

Made -- pronounced MAH-day -- shot up to No. 56 on MLB Pipeline’s updated Top 100 Prospects list and will be Milwaukee’s No. 2 prospect when an updated Brewers Top 30 list is unveiled on Tuesday. Like Chourio’s arrival on the Top 100 two years ago, Made’s rise has been meteoric, from a $950,000 signing in January 2024 to a 51-game debut in the Dominican Summer League, where he logged a 1.103 OPS, showed discipline with a 15 percent chase rate, made contact on 89 percent of his swings, flashed speed with 28 bases, made the All-Star team and shared the Brewers’ Minor League Player of the Year Award with fellow shortstop Cooper Pratt, who sits right next to Made at No. 57 on MLB Pipeline's Top 100.

Then there are the traits which are more difficult to measure, like Made’s maturity. For an example of that, consider how he answered a simple question on Sunday morning, via translator and Arizona Rookie League Brewers manager Rafael Neda.

What would constitute a successful 2025 season?

“A positive season for me would be to learn from my mistakes, continue to gain more experience, fail and get back and continue to show what I can do on the field,” Made said.

Fail? One rarely hears that word uttered by a top prospect.

“For me,” Made explained, "failing means more because I can learn more from failing. Baseball is such a tough sport that you are going to fail most of the time. For me, I just want to continue to learn and be better from my failure.”

Made will turn 18 on May 8, and if the Brewers follow the Chourio model, it could be a busy year. Chourio played 45 games in the DSL as a 17-year-old in 2021, then went from Single-A Carolina to High-A Wisconsin to Double-A Biloxi as an 18-year-old in ‘22. Then he spent the bulk of the following year at Biloxi.

Of course, Made will have to pass each test to earn his promotions.

“I think right now his offensive potential is higher than his defensive skills. There is a lot of work to do on the defensive side,” said Brewers roving instructor Mike Guerrero, who was Chourio’s manager in Double-A. “But when you look at the overall, he has the package to be a really impactful big league ballplayer.”

Said Luis Pérez, Milwaukee's director of Latin American evaluation: “I don’t want to say he’s going to be Chourio, but I would just say he has the promise. For that age, the strength, the exit velocity, is crazy.”

Made takes the comparisons to Chourio, and the recent prospect hype, in stride, saying he is “trying to stay focused on my plan.” And while Brewers officials are careful to note that Chourio and Made are different players with different skills, it can’t be a coincidence that when Made was assigned a uniform number for Minor League camp, it was No. 11 -- the same number Chourio is wearing in the big leagues.

“To me, it’s just a number that I got,” Made said. “But it’s obviously something really cool if I can continue to follow in his footsteps, because he made it. It’s a goal that we all want to make it. … I feel really excited, knowing that players can get rewarded. It’s a great opportunity I would like to achieve.”

For Made, the dream is to make it to honor his father, who taught him to love baseball in the first place.

“My dad has mentioned that he wishes he would have had the same talent that I possess. He would have been in the big leagues,” Made said, cracking a smile. “In the past, he has had the chance to see me play in the Dominican, and hopefully this year he will have a chance to come [to the U.S.] and check out my game.

“It would be really neat to have my dad in the stands cheering for me, because he was the one who has helped me from the beginning, practicing and leading me. It would be really neat.”