Brewers finalize 8-year, $50.75 million deal with prized shortstop prospect Cooper Pratt

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Milwaukee Brewers finalized their eight-year, $50.75 million contract with Cooper Pratt on Friday, adding their prized 21-year-old shortstop prospect to their 40-man roster and optioning him to Triple-A Nashville.

The deal with Pratt includes club options that could keep him with the Brewers through the 2035 season.

“Cooper has all the tools to be a special player,” Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said, “and we are thrilled that he will be in a Brewers uniform for years to come. This commitment continues to show our organization’s passion — led by ownership — to consistently produce a winning team season after season.”

Pratt is among the top prospects in a Brewers farm system that ranks among the best in the majors. He was rated by MLB Pipeline as the No. 60 prospect in all of baseball and fourth among those in the Milwaukee organization — 18-year-old infielder Jesús Made, who is at Double-A Biloxi, is the top Brewers prospect and ranked the third-best in all of baseball.

The Brewers in many ways are following the blueprint they laid with outfielder Jackson Chourio, whom they signed to an eight-year, $82 million deal in December 2023 when he was 19 years old. He had only played six games above Double-A but reached the majors the following year, and he has at least 20 homers and 20 steals in each of his first two seasons.

“I think any time an organization decides to make a commitment to a player for a long period of time, they do their research. We all agree this is the right person to do this with,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said before Friday night’s game in Kansas City.

“I think he’s close, relatively speaking, but spring training and stuff like that, it’s not a real indicator of whether you’re ready or not,” Murphy said. “He’s got to go out now and do the day-to-day in Triple-A.”

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The Brewers selected Pratt in the sixth round of the 2023 first-year player draft out of Magnolia Heights High School in Senatobia, Mississippi. He was already a polished fielder but is starting to develop at the plate, where he hit .238 with eight homers, 62 RBIs, 31 steals and 67 walks in 120 games with Double-A Biloxi in the pitcher-friendly Southern League last season.

Pratt was 4 for 15 with an RBI and a steal while playing in three games at Nashville last season, and he flashed more of his potential this spring, when he hit .294 with a .405 on-base percentage and four RBIs in 18 spring training games this year.

“Prospects are prospects. They’re things to be excited about, but it doesn’t guarantee anything. It’s ballplayers,” Murphy said. “When a prospect becomes a ballplayer, that’s when it means something. I don’t mean to discredit or take the shine off Cooper’s big day, but it’s all about being a ballplayer.”

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb