'You Shouldn't Be Fresh in September,' and More Wisdom from Brewers Outfielder Sal Frelick

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The 2025 Brewers entered September in an unusual place: the lap of luxury. Having won 14 straight games (and 29 of 33) to race far ahead in the NL Central by mid-August, they were in position to coast to a division title. It was a good thing, too, because by that point, they were dragging. Even in the second half of August, one could detect their edges fraying slightly, but in the first half of September, they looked positively worn out by winning in such intense, detail-oriented fashion every day.

Right fielder and team leader Sal Frelick showed the wear and tear most of all. In July and August, his bat speed had averaged just a hair under 69 miles per hour. In September, it was 66.8. He batted just .237/.302/.368 for the month, after batting .296/.359/.412 through the end of August. As he prepares for his third full season in the majors, though, Frelick isn't focused on managing his effort differently over the season's 162-game grind.

"Listen, you shouldn't be fresh in September, honestly," Frelick said Wednesday in the Brewers' spring training clubhouse in Maryvale. "You should play hard enough so you're tired in September, and I mean, yeah, you're gonna be dragging—you're [even] dragging in July—but that's never an excuse. Everyone's tired."

Frelick said October offers a second wind at the end of the relentless regular campaign, but that he's learned not to wait for that. His preparation for his fourth big-league season has been focused not on being "130 percent" come September, he explained, but on being as mentally strong as possible. Last spring, he reported to camp heavier and stronger than in the past, but it didn't insulate him from the gravity of the schedule, and he's learning not to try to force his body to feel better than is realistic.

Pat Murphy concurs with that approach.

"I don't think we're the only team that goes through that, but I think young players go through that [more than veterans]," Murphy said. "And I think it's not pacing yourself, either. It's just being in better condition mentally, more than physically."

Both Murphy and Frelick fight to keep the focus on the things that are within their control, which often excludes the results of at-bats but always includes things like attention to detail and swing decisions. Those things deteriorate even more than bat speed or jumps on fly balls, in the heat and the accumulated fatigue of the late summer. 

"Yeah that's the hardest part, right?" Frelick said. "I think the mental part is just the hardest part of the game, in general. You can go out and have four barrels and get out four times, and how do you—even though you were 0-for-4 and you might've lost the game—how do you wake up the next morning and go into it saying, 'I'm confident'?

"It's a hard thing to deal with, especially when those 0-for-4s are 0-for-20s. But I think you just have, again, the experience, the understanding of how long a season is, how many games you're gonna play, how many at-bats you're gonna get, how many plate appearances you're gonna get. That only helps the mental game."

Frelick carries himself, a month shy of his 26th birthday, with a much greater air of security than he had when he first arrived in the majors. Experience is already benefiting him, in ways that should carry all the way from March to October.

"I remember early on, I would get more upset or have more of a freakout when I wasn't playing well. But now, in retrospect, I don't even remember any of those freakouts, because the season's so long, it's not even worth worrying about it," the sudden veteran explained. "This is the stuff Murph talks about. It's such a long season. You're gonna have a month or two where you play really bad. You're gonna have, hopefully, more months where you play really good. It's just how you go through it."

Frelick's maturity manifested itself in a better ability to balance selectivity with aggressiveness at the plate last year. Notably, he hit 12 home runs, but all of them came against right-handed pitchers. Frelick said that was because of a conscious difference between his approaches against righties and lefties. To generate power, he picks his spots and turns on the ball, driving it to his pull field. Against southpaws, though, that's not his approach—and he doesn't plan to make it so.

"I try to really hit the ball the other way more, just stay closed," Frelick said of his approach to left-on-left matchups. "You just can't really get pull-happy."

To ensure that he didn't do so, Frelick set up slightly deeper in the batter's box against lefties than against righties, and slightly farther off the plate. He fought the urge to open up too soon on pitches from lefties by knowing he needed to stay in just to cover the outer edge of the plate, and he caught the ball slightly farther in front of himself against righties, giving himself a better chance to pull and lift those pitches. Here, on the left, is his stance and stride against lefties last year. On the right are his stance and setup against righties.

Frelick didn't sell out for power in 2025, but he tapped into much more of it, which he credited to his evolving approach. That power might continue to be isolated in matchups against right-handed pitchers, but if he continues to make contact and reach base at a strong rate against southpaws, he's happy to keep making the same tradeoffs.

On a perpetually young team who turned over its roster yet again this winter, Frelick (like Brice Turang, William Contreras, Aaron Ashby and others) has a much greater leadership role in this clubhouse than he would in most such rooms throughout the league. He's increasingly well-suited to that job, and his message—about everything from approaching disadvantageous matchups to sustaining excellence across the long season—is in lockstep with that of his manager.

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[Trax]

He is a great young player and will play in the league for a very long time.   Guys like he and Turang are players even a small market team like the Brewers must find a way to keep and build around.