In Brewers' Salvage Win in Cleveland, Sal Frelick Provided a Timely Reminder of His Intentions in 2025

Sal Frelick is a gritty, fiery competitor—the type of individual who can be a sparkplug for a struggling team. On Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland, Frelick was just that, launching a home run over 400 feet and returning to the dugout all guns blazing. The emotional energy he plays with is second to none, but he came into this year knowing that he needed to impact the ball with more of that intensity.

Having provided a tantalizing glimpse of his capability in Game 3 of last year's Wild Card Series, there was hope that Frelick might try and lean into that more this season. So far, it seems he's attempting to do just that. While his Baseball Savant page still doesn't blush with the quality of contact metrics, Frelick is averaging 86.1 mph on his batted balls (up 3 mph on 2204), and boasts a hard-hit rate up from 19.5% to 30.3% and a bat speed up from 66.3 mph to 68 mph.

He's doing this with a similar set of changes to the ones made by Brice Turang this offseason. Frelick's batting stance is less spread out, in an effort to gain more power from his legs and torso. His feet are 3 inches closer together, while he's also opened up his stance to try and pull the ball more frequently. His pull rate is up from 29.3% to 40% in 2025, but it's come at the cost (early on) of an increase in ground balls. The changes he's made are working, but they aren't being maximized yet.

He's swinging harder and hitting the ball harder, but there are signs he's still finding some timing issues when he does swing fast. The graph below shows that in 2025, Frelick is swinging the bat at speeds of 75-80 mph noticeably more often, while avoiding those uncomfortable swings in the 55-60 mph bat speed range almost entirely. 

Frelick spoke about this in spring training, naming a desire to see balls he can attack and do damage on early in counts while still preserving his essence as a hitter in putting balls in play and avoiding strikeouts. Plate discipline and contact skills will always be his bread and butter, but it's also safe to say that Frelick's timing on his efforts to do damage isn't quite there. The graph above does highlight a similar overall range of bat speeds, just with an increase in the number of fast swings when he feels he can hone in on a mistake. He might not be picking his spots well enough yet, though.

So far this season, Frelick has swung the bat over 73 mph on 22 occasions. Of those, he's put the ball in play six times, and only one had an expected ISO of over .100, meaning the expected extra-base hits output just isn't there. Only once did he have an expected batting average over .220. In layman's terms, Sal Frelick isn't managing to marry increased offensive output with the increased violence of the swing. Let's take a look at some of the higher bat speeds he's produced to see why that may be:

vs. Carson Spiers 4/5/25 - 82.5 mph

   Frelick's biggest bat speed of the year, he saw this pitch from Carson Spiers in a 1-0 count and gambled heavily on a four-seam/sinker over the heart of the plate. Frelick was caught miles in front of the pitch, and remember, Spiers uses his cutter quite frequently. It's absolutely fine for Frelick to gamble in hitter's counts and get caught out in front—that's a tradeoff he's admitted to accepting—but this may become a common theme.

Frelick was evidently feeling good in that series against the Royals, following up the next day with two more swings in excess of 78 mph. Still, though, he didn't quite time them up.

Michael Lorenzen 4/1/25 - 77.8 mph Here we can see Frelick gambling on a four seam fastball, and it comes in right over the middle of the plate. Yet again, he's trying to pull the ball, but he gets far underneath the ball and misses a premium chance to do some damage. We have one more example;

Keider Montero 4/16/25 - 77.8 mph Here again, Frelick gets a pitch over the heart of the plate to drive. It's a non-fastball, so perhaps some leeway could be granted here, but again, he seems to recognize and adjust to that—before getting caught out in front once more and rolling over a ball about as much as anyone can roll over any pitch.

Frelick is entirely correct in his approach. He should be trying to access the pull side when he's looking to do damage, and he should be targeting these specific pitches. His issue, as it was early in the season, is that he's been getting caught out in front. Perhaps adjusting to the increased bat speed, he just hasn't quite found his timing.

He managed to on Wednesday afternoon, on a swing of 72.9 mph (his previous home run came on a 69 mph swing). If he can lock into the feel of squaring up balls with the higher bat speeds as consistently and effectively as he does at the lower end of his spectrum, there is most certainly more juice in Frelick's bat. He just needs to find that sweet spot.

Is the summer of Sal to become a real thing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!