Shortstop Cooper Pratt is on his way to Milwaukee, two days after an emotional scene at Class AAA Nashville where he could be seen shaking hands and receiving hugs from teammates after he was pulled from a game. The Milwaukee Brewers will begin a three-game set with Cleveland on June 16.
Here’s what to know about Pratt, regarded as the No. 2 prospect in the organization by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel before the 2026 season.
How old is Cooper Pratt?
He’s 21 years old and will turn 22 in August.
Where is Cooper Pratt from?
He was born in Florida but played high-school baseball in Mississippi, where he became the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year in 2023. It’s good company; current big leaguers Braden Montgomery, Austin Riley, Blaze Jordan J.T. Ginn and Colt Keith won that honor in the years before Pratt, and Pirates phenom Konnor Griffin won the year after Pratt.
How tall is Cooper Pratt?
As shortstops go, he’s a big player, standing 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds.
How did the Brewers acquire Cooper Pratt?
Milwaukee selected him in the sixth round of the 2023 Major League Baseball draft.
Only the sixth round?
Yes, but he was considered one of the jewels of the draft for Milwaukee in 2023, if not the headliner. Remember how the MLB slot system works, where one of the main goals is allocating a team’s “bonus pool” in such a way that maximizes the talent of selections. Pratt signed then for $1.3 million, the fourth-highest bonus given to any Brewers draftee that year.
What are Cooper Pratt’s stats?
After a slow start in Nashville this year, Pratt has rebounded and posted a .735 OPS despite being young for the level, with a .349 on-base percentage, .241 average and six homers in 261 plate appearances. He also has six doubles, four triples and 17 stolen bases (caught just once).
He’s regarded as an elite defensive shortstop; two years ago he won the minor-league gold glove as the top defensive shortstop across the minors, chosen when he played for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.
What else does Cooper Pratt do well?
The Brewers believe more power will follow as he gets older, given his size, but he’s already got excellent contact skills and a penchant for good swing decisions. He’s drawn 34 walks this year in the 261 plate appearances, a quality 13% walk rate that has risen throughout his career. On the other side, he has 36 strikeouts for a 14% strikeout rate, another strong number that’s been headed in the right direction as he gets older.
He’s been working on cutting down chase with two strikes. He’s also an elite base stealer who will fit right in with the Brewers’ penchant for speed and chaos. He has a great arm.
What to know about the Brewers signing Pratt to a contract early this season
In early April, the Brewers signed Pratt to an eight-year extension worth $50.75 million, and maybe more with incentives and team options. It means he could be in Milwaukee through 2035.
That put Pratt on the 40-man roster, so adding him to the active 26-man roster doesn’t automatically require designating a player for assignment or moving a player to the 60-day injured list to make room. It also eliminates any concerns about “arbitration clock” or “service time” (both of which wouldn’t matter at this point in the season, anyway), because he’s already getting paid on a big-league contract, with numbers cemented in stone for possibly the next decade.
It’s a bold stroke to sign a player before his big-league debut, but the trend has grown across MLB and certainly in Milwaukee, where similar deals were struck for Jackson Chourio and, most recently, Luis Lara.
Where does Pratt rank on prospect lists?
Whose spot will Cooper Pratt take on the Brewers roster?
We’ll learn that later June 16, but we can guess.
Given that Pratt was seen shaking hands in the dugout shortly after the Brewers game ended and didn’t simply report to Milwaukee before his AAA game began that day in Nashville, it’s reasonable to conclude that something compelled the Brewers to make the call quickly Sunday, as opposed to a fully pre-meditated maneuver. That leads us to believe either someone got injured or something convinced Milwaukee that now was the time, a sudden reaction that isn’t particularly common in the organization.
Luis Rengifo, who has struggled mightily at the plate this season, didn’t leave Sunday’s game early against the Phillies but did incur a couple injury scares, making him someone to watch. Since Pratt is a shortstop, it’ll also be worth noting how roles change for Joey Ortiz and David Hamilton, both of whom have struggled overall this season at the plate but have seen better results in June.
The Brewers have tried to get Hamilton more playing time at shortstop with Ortiz struggling offensively, though Ortiz is the stronger defender at that spot on the diamond. Hamilton has also played third base this year for the first time in his career, and Ortiz played the entire 2024 season at third base with Willy Adames handling shortstop.
Pratt has played almost exclusively shortstop in his minor-league career, except for three games at second base in rookie ball and one game this year as a designated hitter.
You may remember Cooper Pratt from …
Remember when Jacob Misiorowski went viral in spring training for seemingly throwing a fastball that clipped an apple off the head of someone sitting at home plate? That someone was, in fact, Cooper Pratt. No shortstop prospects were harmed in the filming of the segment, thanks to some Brewers movie magic.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about Cooper Pratt, Brewer prospect set for June 16 debut
Reporting by JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
