Frelick working on second and third base with Dustin Pedroia

[Matt]

 

[markedman5]

 

[jay87shot]

Wow, he started at 3B today, I guess the team is super serious about him in the IF. If we trade Willy what would Sal play 3B or 2B. 3B Sal, SS Ortiz, 2B Turang, Black becomes a super utility maybe 1st base for 2025. Does Frelick become a super utility guy? I really didn't believe that we were really that serious about Sal in the infield.

[Brewcrew82]

I just don't see Frelick at 3B for a meaningful amount of time. 2B could be a different story, but 3B is a bit of a stretch imo. 

If I had to guess right now, Frelick still sees the majority of the season in the OF. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

3 hours ago, jay87shot said:

Wow, he started at 3B today, I guess the team is super serious about him in the IF. If we trade Willy what would Sal play 3B or 2B. 3B Sal, SS Ortiz, 2B Turang, Black becomes a super utility maybe 1st base for 2025. Does Frelick become a super utility guy? I really didn't believe that we were really that serious about Sal in the infield.

Look at the rest of the lineup today....it's spring training.

[markedman5]

24 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Look at the rest of the lineup today....it's spring training.

Yeah don’t read too much into this…..Brewers love flexibility……if they are going to keep let’s say 5 outfielders it really helps if one of them can also play the infield in a pinch in case of double switches or the like.

I don’t see Sal being a starter at 3rd or 2nd this season.

 

[KeithStone53151]

9 hours ago, Matt said:

Or he's just putting in additional training time. 

I don't get the idea that any time put in at 3B is automatically time taken away at hitting. You can't spend eight hours in the cage. 

He very well might be putting in a ton of time, but we don't really know that. It's certainly possible that hiura spent so much time focusing on defense that he spent less time continuing to improve the hit tool. It's also very common for catchers to be late developing at hitting because so much focus is on developing as a catcher as the priority. A lot more goes into improving at hitting than cage work. I don't really think there's a right or wrong answer here. I can understand why someone would not be concerned about his offense with him putting in time learning new positions. I personally am a bit concerned. Every player in the league either is, or should be, putting in the time to try and out-work their peers in the off-season and get a step ahead. If sal is spending 3/4 of his time on defense and 1/4 on offense because of this position change...that might be enough to keep him from improving enough to keep up with the pitchers improving.

[KeithStone53151]

4 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I just don't see Frelick at 3B for a meaningful amount of time. 2B could be a different story, but 3B is a bit of a stretch imo. 

If I had to guess right now, Frelick still sees the majority of the season in the OF. 

Probably a safe bet, but it seems like there's more of a vacancy at 3b than 2b. I would think taking playing time from momasterio will be easier than turang...especially considering he's a rh bat.

[Playing Catch]

I'm not sure I believe what I'm throwing out here, but maybe the Brewers aren't that serious about IF. Maybe it's actually a way to force someone like Sal to take a "break," from baseball. Keep things fresh and fun. Kinda like playing multiple sports in high school.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

Still think this is first and foremost about creating leverage in trade talks in their current or future trade talks with regard to their surplus of OFs. What logjam? But, I think it's time to at least consider Frelick is naturally talented enough to be a legitimate major league infielder.

[Underachiever]

For those concerned about Sal learning a new position and its effect on his hitting, do you have the same concern about if Yelich had to learn first base? There has been a lot of sentiment on here for moving CY to 1B, and I haven't heard anyone worried that his hitting will suffer. 

[TURBO]

We have our future 3B already, Wilken will be there at some point this season, just a matter of how soon they will move him up.  I've been saying since last season, this kid is going to solve our 3B problem for years to come!  I was actually hoping they would trade Turang so we could have Black at 2B and Wilken at 3B.  Now that we look like we are keeping Adames (this year anyway) especially.

[torts]

42 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

For those concerned about Sal learning a new position and its effect on his hitting, do you have the same concern about if Yelich had to learn first base? There has been a lot of sentiment on here for moving CY to 1B, and I haven't heard anyone worried that his hitting will suffer. 

He has to show he can hit first

[Fear The Chorizo]

48 minutes ago, Underachiever said:

For those concerned about Sal learning a new position and its effect on his hitting, do you have the same concern about if Yelich had to learn first base? There has been a lot of sentiment on here for moving CY to 1B, and I haven't heard anyone worried that his hitting will suffer. 

I'm more concerned what playing 1b would do to a guy with a well documented history of back issues compared to playing OF or being a full time DH later into his current contract.

Also, Frelick has been in the majors a couple months in his career, and offensively he struggled quite a bit and still needs to prove he's a good enough offensive player to warrant being shifted all over the field to keep his bat in the lineup.  Yelich is a veteran with a league MVP trophy and a few silver sluggers to his name.

[NOMAAM]

Frelick starting at 3B again today.  Certainly trying to get him in game reps.

[MVP2110]

It's interesting to me that he seemingly is getting alot more time at 3b as opposed to 2b

[brewerfan82]

20 minutes ago, MVP2110 said:

It's interesting to me that he seemingly is getting alot more time at 3b as opposed to 2b

Could be they'd just like to get him a few games in a row at 3B before giving him some games at 2B instead of bouncing him back and forth. Let's see what they do 4 games into Spring Training 😉

[wallus]

59 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

Could be they'd just like to get him a few games in a row at 3B before giving him some games at 2B instead of bouncing him back and forth. Let's see what they do 4 games into Spring Training 😉

I think it could be as simple as we have much less options to play 3B at the moment vs 2B.

[markedman5]

21 hours ago, wallus said:

I think it could be as simple as we have much less options to play 3B at the moment vs 2B.

And 2nd base is a more impactful and  difficult position to master ……especially without the shift.

[homer]

Maybe he hasn't really learned how to turn the double play at second base? 

[CheezWizHed]

Clearly, Sal is going to go on to have a strong career at 3B for the Brewers.  Then in his 30s, will finish his career with some so-so seasons with Oakland.  Later, he will go on to become Oakland's GM and have some mediocre seasons dealing with a tight budget and making poor 1st round draft picks. 

[BrewerFan]

On 2/25/2024 at 9:52 AM, Underachiever said:

For those concerned about Sal learning a new position and its effect on his hitting, do you have the same concern about if Yelich had to learn first base? There has been a lot of sentiment on here for moving CY to 1B, and I haven't heard anyone worried that his hitting will suffer. 

That's a very different thing.

1-Yelich is a proven MLB hitter...Sal is not. He's still in the stage of his career where he has to adjust to the pitchers adjustments. 

2-The transition from OF to 3B/2B is MUCH different than the transition to 1B. 1B is the easiest position to learn. 3B/2B are...not.

 

I don't really buy into the "it's taking away from his hitting," theory to begin with, but even without believing it, I think you're comparing apples and oranges. 

[BrewerFan]

On 2/25/2024 at 10:20 AM, TURBO said:

We have our future 3B already, Wilken will be there at some point this season, just a matter of how soon they will move him up.  I've been saying since last season, this kid is going to solve our 3B problem for years to come!  I was actually hoping they would trade Turang so we could have Black at 2B and Wilken at 3B.  Now that we look like we are keeping Adames (this year anyway) especially.

Wilken looks promising. He's also got 47 MiLB games, only 6 above A ball and has hit 5 HRs. 

So his future as our 3B is not exactly cemented in stone. There are also questions about his ability to stay at 3B. 1B at this point seems just as likely. 

Trading Turang this year would have been a bad decision. You'd be selling low on him. For what? There's plenty of PT for both and chances are Black is going to struggle himself. 

We wait for these guys to get to the big leagues and then they don't hit for a couple months and we want to deal them? I don't get this...just as I don't get the idea of trading Wiemer or Mitchell. The Dodgers/Rays, they don't just trade players shortly after coming up because they don't immediately hit the ground running or they're at a position that's loaded(and they're lucky given the Franco situation).

I'd rather hold and wait to see what we've got than trade a guy too early and watch our drafting and developing all pay off elsewhere. 

[BrewerFan]

12 hours ago, CheezWizHed said:

Clearly, Sal is going to go on to have a strong career at 3B for the Brewers.  Then in his 30s, will finish his career with some so-so seasons with Oakland.  Later, he will go on to become Oakland's GM and have some mediocre seasons dealing with a tight budget and making poor 1st round draft picks. 

This should be an auto-reply for every "the Brewers are cheap," comment.

Or just a link to the summary of Bando trying(successfully) to run Molitor out of Milwaukee.

[CheezWizHed]

8 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Or just a link to the summary of Bando trying(successfully) to run Molitor out of Milwaukee.

Ouch... I must've blocked that out of my memory as part of Sal's legacy.