{"id":591021,"date":"2026-04-07T10:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591021\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:21:10","slug":"cooper-pratt-takes-giant-step-toward-mlb-debut-with-brewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591021\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper Pratt Takes Giant Step Toward MLB Debut With Brewers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>His second major league spring training behind him, shortstop Cooper Pratt was one of several Brewers prospects who made the trip north to take part in a two-game exhibition series against the Reds at American Family Field leading into Opening Day.<\/p>\n<p>A week later, Pratt agreed to an eight-year, $50.75 million contract that ensures he will take the field many more times in Milwaukee. His extension is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseballamerica.com\/stories\/14-biggest-contract-extensions-for-players-with-minimal-mlb-experience\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">third-most lucrative<\/a> for a pre-debut player.<\/p>\n<p>Drafted in the sixth round in 2023 out of high school in Mississippi, the 21-year-old Pratt is not far off from making his MLB debut after opening the season with Triple-A Nashville.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, Pratt batted .238\/.343\/.348 with eight home runs and 31 stolen bases in 120 games for Double-A Biloxi.<\/p>\n<p>A natural shortstop, he has evoked comparisons internally to JJ Hardy, taking into account his long, lanky frame and feel for the game with the potential to grow into more of an offensive threat as his career progresses.<\/p>\n<p>Pratt said his time in big league camp went as well as he could have hoped. <\/p>\n<p>\u201dI struggled at the beginning,\u201d he said, \u201cthen as it progressed, I started to feel more comfortable, started to see the ball better.Everything started to click a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brewers manager Pat Murphy views Pratt as being \u201cclose to ready.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe belongs,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI think last year he didn\u2019t know for sure. He\u2019s a very humble kid. And I think that now he\u2019s seeing, \u2018I think I\u2019m close.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe knows he has work to do before he\u2019s ready. But he knows he\u2019s closer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pratt, however, is only thinking of the here and now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t really think like that,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just have to keep thinking about where your feet are and when the time comes, it\u2019ll be there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His second major league spring training behind him, shortstop Cooper Pratt was one of several Brewers prospects who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,216509,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-591021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-organization-reports","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}