Former Parkway Star Faced with Make-or-Break MLB Season

The 2025 season is setting up to be a total make-or-break season for a former Bossier City baseball star.

Eric Brown Jr played his high school baseball for Parkway High School in Bossier City. He was ranked as the second best shortstop in the state by Perfect Game during his senior season in 2019. The same year, Perfect Game called him the 85th best shortstop in the entire nation.

After high school, he took his talents to Coastal Carolina, who had won a National Championship (2016) while Brown was in high school. On Coastal Carolina's way to the championship, they had to play through Baton Rouge, and beat LSU in the Super Regionals. Making a pretty big name for the program across Louisiana.

At Coastal Carolina, Brown put together one of the best careers in program history. He was named Sun Belt Player of the Year by all major publications in 2022, was named All-Conference in 2022, and 2nd-team All-Conference in 2021. Culminating in Brown being selected in the First Round of the 2022 MLB Draft (27th overall) by the Milwaukee Brewers. This made him the highest player drafted from the Coastal Carolina program at the time.

Brown was an exciting prospect for the Brewers organization. His defense and speed fit very well with the franchise profile all the way to the big league club. But the biggest concern surrounding Brown was his ability to hit, and that's something he hasn't been able to shake during his minor league career.

Though many fans expected Brown to shoot through the organization, and possibly be ready to fill the shortstop void when Willy Adames inevitably left the team (which he did this offseason to join the San Francisco Giants)...but that spot opened, and Brown wasn't ready. As we get ready to end Spring Training for this year, its not certain if Brown will see another season at Double A with the Biloxi Shuckers, or if he will have to head back to High-A ball. Either way, he won't be in Milwaukee.

This will be Brown's third season in professional baseball, and the former First Round pick has a lot of pressure on him to prove he could one day play at the Major League level. Last year at Double A, he hit for a .185 average, which wouldn't be good enough at the MLB level, so its not going to let him rise about Double A until he can turn that around.

Brown has the speed to be a player with the MLB club, as he's been able to steal more than 20 bases in his last two years. But its really hard to steal a base if you didn't get on base to begin with.

If Brown can bring it all together this year, and start hitting the cover off the ball, there are options for him to finally skyrocket through the minors and hit the major league squad. Because the team could have some serious holes this year.