The Brewers and shortstop prospect Cooper Pratt are reportedly close to terms on an eight-year extension. The deal would guarantee Pratt $50.75 million over the life of the deal, and there are also two club options worth about $15 million apiece. As it’s a major league contract, Pratt must be added to Milwaukee’s 40-man roster. A corresponding move to make the terms work has not yet been announced.

While extensions for prospects who have yet to debut are becoming more common, Pratt’s is a little unusual. These tend to either be large deals to consensus top prospects, often with the carrot of a ticket to the Opening Day roster as a sort of signing bonus, or smaller sums for enticing but flawed farmhands. The eight-year, $82 million extension Milwaukee inked with Jackson Chourio prior to the 2024 season is a good example of the former (as is the eight-year, $95 million pact the Mariners reportedly just struck with Colt Emerson), while the six-year, $25 million pacts Seattle signed with Evan White and Philadelphia with Scott Kingery cover the latter. Pratt’s deal doesn’t fit cleanly in either category. It’s a pretty good chunk of change for a player who evaluators generally don’t see as a future star, and it’s also not a pay-for-play deal, as Pratt will likely remain at Triple-A after signing.

Pratt was taken in the sixth round of the 2023 draft from Magnolia Heights High School in Mississippi. Eric ranked him 25th on the Draft Board that year, but his $1.35 signing bonus was commensurate with more of a second-round talent. As you’d expect for a prospect in consideration for this kind of contract, he’s performed well in pro ball. After a successful cameo on the complex in his draft season, Pratt notched a 132 wRC+ at Low-A as a 19-year-old, with strong contact skills and a low walk rate. He spent all of 2025 at Double-A, where he played a clean shortstop and hit .238/.343/.348, good for a 107 wRC+. He also dropped his strikeout rate to 15.2%, impressive for a 20-year-old at that level. Read the rest of this entry »

Nine days after the end of the World Baseball Classic, more than three weeks since he was hit by a pitch, and just hours before his team’s Opening Day game, another WBC participant landed on the injured list. Jackson Chourio, who served as the regular center fielder for Venezuela’s championship-winning squad and who is slated to be the starting left fielder for the Brewers, was placed on the IL on Thursday morning due to a fracture in his left hand.

Chourio, who turned 22 on March 11, was hit on the hand by a heater from Clayton Beeter in Venezuela’s exhibition game against the Nationals on March 4. Initial X-rays were negative, and he was diagnosed with a contusion. He sat out Venezuela’s first two games of pool play while the Marlins’ Javier Sanoja started in center field, but Chourio returned to the lineup on March 9, playing the final two pool games and the three knockout round games. For the tournament, he hit just .200/.278/.200 in 19 plate appearances, though he did barrel a few balls.

When Chourio returned to the Brewers, according to manager Pat Murphy, he underwent a scan of some sort — I’d guess a CT scan, which is much quicker than an MRI — but it did not show a fracture. He continued to play regularly, and even homered off the Padres’ Randy Vásquez on March 21, but after he felt pain in his hand during a check swing in an exhibition against the Reds on Tuesday, the Brewers sent him for an MRI, which reportedly revealed a small hairline fracture at the base of his third metacarpal. While the fracture has begun to heal, Murphy said the team is understandably “worried that there could be further injury if he doesn’t take care of it now.” Thus the IL move, which is retroactive to March 25. He’s expected to miss two to four weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been doing a lot of looking at depth charts this week. All of us FanGraphs writers have – these positional power rankings don’t write themselves. When you look at the majors through this lens, you’ll naturally do a lot of thinking about floor and ceiling. The Yankees are playing who at third base? The Brewers are getting how much WAR by avoiding weak spots? The Red Sox have that many outfielders?

I’ve written some team overviews this winter. In them, I make the following claim: “Building a team that outperforms opponents on the strength of its 15th to 26th best players being far superior to their counterparts on other clubs might help in the dog days of August, when everyone’s playing their depth guys and cobbling together a rotation, but that won’t fly in October.” The converse of that claim – that stars matter disproportionately in October – is part and parcel of this depth argument. But is that true?

Some might say that the best time to answer this question is when the playoffs are just around the corner. I’d counter that those people haven’t just spent seven hours staring at a pile of acceptable-but-not-overwhelming third base and starting pitcher options and trying to write something about each one. So in the spirit of doing anything other than looking at power rankings, I decided to test out this assumption. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Royals traded for Isaac Collins in December, I praised the move. I understand that there are limitations to a 5-foot-8 corner outfielder who showed his first signs of major league life at age 27, but the man hit .263/.368/.411 last year, and the Royals — a team traditionally in dire need of live bats — only gave up a middle reliever to get him.

A Royals fan on Bluesky asked me how to feel about that move when it happened, and I answered thusly: “I think it’s a steal, as long as you make your peace with the small but non-trivial possibility that the Brewers turn Angel Zerpa into Josh Hader.” Read the rest of this entry »

This offseason, I’ve taken high-level looks at the offseason decisions made by the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox. It’s been a popular series, so today, I’m going to use the same framework to offer a holistic evaluation of the Brewers. As a refresher, here’s how I’ve been thinking about the exercise:

“How should we evaluate a front office, particularly in the offseason when we don’t have games to look at? I’ve never been able to arrive at a single framework. That’s only logical. If there were one simple tool we could use to evaluate the sport, baseball wouldn’t be as interesting to us as it is. The metrics we use to evaluate teams, and even players, are mere abstractions. The goal of baseball – winning games, or winning the World Series in a broad sense – can be achieved in a ton of different ways. We measure a select few of those in most of our attempts at estimating value, or at figuring out who “won” or “lost” a given transaction. So today, I thought I’d try something a little bit different.”

I won’t be offering a single grade. Instead, I’m going to assess the decisions that Matt Arnold and the Brewers made across three axes. The first is Coherence of Strategy. If you make a win-now trade, but then head into the season with a gaping hole on your roster, that’s not a coherent approach. It’s never quite that simple in the real world, but good teams make sets of decisions that work toward the same overarching goal. Read the rest of this entry »

Senior Software Engineer (Baseball Systems)

Overview
The Senior Software Engineer (Baseball Systems) will collaborate with the Systems team to build features for our stakeholders. This position requires strong software development skills and experience, as well as a demonstrated ability for independent thought and the willingness to work within a team framework.

Core duties for this role include, but are not limited to:

• Deliver highly dependable, easy to use software while being part of a fast-moving team.
• Create and maintain features that deliver information to stakeholders while collaborating with Data Engineering, Tech Operations, and Research & Development.
• Propose visualizations or interfaces that communicate the intended information to a broad audience throughout baseball operations.
• Work with advanced baseball concepts, particularly statistics relevant to player evaluation techniques

The ideal candidate will have experience across the full web stack. They will have a bachelor’s degree (B. A.) in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from four-year college or university; and five years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience. Hands-on experience in baseball (team, league, or related organization) strongly preferred. Experience utilizing Large Language Models (LLM).

Our Team
Baseball Systems is the software backbone of Baseball Operations. We provide data and decision-making tools for analysts, coaches, and front office personnel to help win a World Series. Our department consists of a team of data engineers and a team of software engineers who work across all different aspects of Baseball Operations providing support and tools relevant to each group. We work directly with stakeholders in every department of Baseball Operations to ensure every project we work on drives value to the organization and helps us win more games on the field. We help drive technical innovation to find new ways to solve baseball problems.

Our Pitch
You come here to make a difference. We are a purpose-led organization, focused on building an inclusive and engaging culture that fosters excellence, collaboration, and ingenuity. We strive to be a model employer and cultivator of talent, empowering our teams to drive innovation through the inclusion of diverse thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. We operate at the highest standard of excellence, investing in the development of our staff across all levels and embracing differences through a culture of respect and understanding.

We are proud to offer a highly competitive perks and benefits package including:

• Exceptional health and dental rates, and fully covered vision package
• 401(K) match and an additional annual contribution from the Club
• Unlimited vacation time
• Paid parental leave
• Collaborative recognition program and incentives
• Leadership development programming
• Online educational platform for personal and professional development
• Business Resource Groups
• Paid time off for volunteering
• Inclusive training and leadership development opportunities aligned with Club values
• Brewers Home Game tickets, promotional giveaways and other discounts!

For more information about our Crew, other benefits and insight into our Club culture please visit our Careers Page.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Milwaukee Brewers.

As baseball, like a bear, emerges from hibernation, the Milwaukee Brewers graced us with a delightful little token:

Would you let The Miz throw a fastball at your head? pic.twitter.com/5Ekr848IdD

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) February 24, 2026

That’s Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski knocking an apple off a teammate’s head from 60 feet, six inches away. Read the rest of this entry »

Shane Drohan might be the least well-known of the three players the Milwaukee Brewers acquired in Monday’s six-player swap with the Boston Red Sox, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t talented, nor is it an indication that he lacks a big league future. Fully healthy and with a more diverse arsenal than he possessed prior to undergoing shoulder surgery 24 months ago, Drohan arguably profiles less as a long shot and more as a diamond in the rough. As my colleague Davy Andrews put it when assessing the deal, “The Brewers get the chance to work their magic on two young pitchers,” with the other being Kyle Harrison.

A 27-year-old southpaw whom the Red Sox took in the fifth round of the 2020 draft out of Florida State University, Drohan is coming off a 2025 season that saw him log a 3.00 ERA, 3.11 FIP, and 34.5% strikeout rate over 54 innings, the bulk of which came at Triple-A Worcester. Health was once again an issue, though this time it wasn’t his shoulder: The Fort Lauderdale native was out of action from early May until mid-August due to forearm inflammation.

Drohan discussed his arsenal, including how it was impacted by having gone under the knife two years ago, when the Red Sox held their annual rookie development camp at Fenway Park in mid-January.

———


David Laurila: I’ve seen your scouting profile, but how do you view yourself as a pitcher? What makes you effective?

Shane Drohan: “I think the biggest reason I’m effective is that I mix a lot. I have a large arsenal, five pitches, that I’m essentially comfortable throwing in any count. I’ll even throw curveballs, changeups, and sliders on 3-0. That puts a lot of pressure on the hitters, knowing that they can’t cancel out any pitch. I also attack both lefties and righties with my entire arsenal. I don’t limit myself against one side or the other.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about new (and encouraging) details about MLB.TV registration, Justin Verlander returning to the Tigers, the rites of spring training, and the Rafael Devers trade in retrospect, before previewing the 2026 Milwaukee Brewers (20:50) with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Curt Hogg, and the 2026 Texas Rangers (1:08:28) with MLB.com’s Kennedi Landry.

Audio intro: Ian Phillips, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: Philip Bergman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Garrett Krohn, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to MLB.TV sign-up details
Link to in-market streaming details
Link to MLBTR on Verlander
Link to over/under draft
Link to EWStats post 1
Link to EWStats post 2
Link to late-signing pitchers post
Link to Casas post
Link to Lindor injury story
Link to Schwellenbach injury story
Link to Jays injuries story
Link to Ben on spring injuries
Link to Crochet announcement
Link to FG post on Durbin deal
Link to FG projected standings
Link to BP projected standings
Link to team payrolls
Link to Brewers offseason tracker
Link to Brewers depth chart
Link to team SS projections
Link to team 3B projections
Link to MLBTR on Contreras surgery
Link to 2025 catcher WAR leaderboard
Link to 2025 catcher IP leaderboard
Link to Sam on Brewers grounders
Link to NL RotY voting
Link to Curt’s author archive
Link to Curt’s podcast
Link to Rangers offseason tracker
Link to Rangers depth chart
Link to SP depth charts
Link to RP depth charts
Link to Burger article
Link to 2025 team batting age
Link to 2025 team pitching age
Link to Kennedi’s author archive

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Clearly, none of those people who argues that the day after Super Bowl Sunday should be national holiday is in charge of the Brewers or the Red Sox. Things got complicated very early this week, as Milwaukee and Boston announced a six-player trade on Monday morning.

The Brewers received infielder David Hamilton and left-handed pitchers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan. The Red Sox received infielders Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, and Anthony Seigler, along with Milwaukee’s competitive balance Round B draft pick. The headliner of the deal is Durbin, who will slot in as Boston’s everyday second or third baseman. When you factor in that Boston also traded for Willson Contreras, signed Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and claimed Tsung-Che Cheng off waivers, the Red Sox have now added more than an entire infield this offseason. Don’t worry; their infield situation is still plenty complicated. Harrison headlines the package going to Milwaukee. The Brewers get the chance to work their magic on two young pitchers, and they get to add to their collection of speedy, scrappy, undersized infielders.

It was an odd trade in some ways. All six players were on 40-man rosters already. The Red Sox got the comp pick (as of now, the 67th pick in the draft) even though they were also getting the biggest name, a player who will go straight from Milwaukee’s starting lineup into their own. The left-handed Hamilton has a few more tools than the right-handed Monasterio, but the two are at least comparable; it’s likely that the handedness of the two players affected Boston’s willingness to part with him. You could argue that the Brewers gave up more than the Red Sox, but that they needed what they got much more. The Red Sox have one of the deepest rotations in the league, so Harrison is going from a team that would have struggled to find room for him to a team that will likely need him to hold down a rotation spot from day one. Read the rest of this entry »