Lexington’s Sal Frelick heads into first full major league baseball season with Milwaukee Brewers

If you told 12-year-old Sal Frelick he’d be fielding ground balls alongside his idol, former Red Sox star second baseman Dustin Pedroia, he’d call bluff.

But in the first week of this past December, the now 23-year-old Sal Frelick did just that.

Set up by Frelick’s manager with the Milwaukee Brewers, Pat Murphy, who was also Pedroia’s former coach at Arizona State, they met up and worked together for a week near the Brewers training complex in Arizona. The former three-sport star at Lexington High School (class of 2018) picked up the nuances of infield play with his idol-turned-mentor ahead of what’s expected to be Frelick’s first full season in the big leagues. 

 “It was awesome,” Frelick told the Lexington Observer. “He’s been a great mentor to me.” 

Frelick’s first full MLB season begins on March 28 with a game in New York against the Mets.

Frelick became the fourth major leaguer from Lexington High School when he joined the Milwaukee Brewers last summer, following LHS grads Dinny McNamara, Dion Nottebart and Chris Shaw. Frelick, who batted .246 with 3 home runs and 24 RBI across 57 games in his debut season, may end up the best of the bunch, having already passed McNamara and Shaw in career games played. Nottebart, a right-handed pitcher, appeared in 296 games from 1960-69.

After strictly playing in the outfield last year, Frelick and the Brewers envision him taking on an all-encompassing, expanded defensive role in 2024. 

“There’s not too many guys on any of the major-league rosters that could make that change,” Murphy said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He can because of who he is. He’s just that guy. He’s got that ‘it’ factor that everybody loves.”

Frelick, who bats left and throws right, embodies athletic versatility. He toyed with the idea of playing both football — Frelick earned the Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year as a high school senior — and baseball at Boston College. He also starred on the Lexington ice hockey team.

“I always said growing up that I was never going to quit a sport,” Frelick said. “The winter was hockey season, my favorite sport in the world, and the fall was football. Spring and summers were baseball and I realized at the later end of my high school career that baseball was the one I had the most potential in.” 

With an offseason residence in Boston and his parents, Jeff and Patty, still in Lexington, Frelick sees home frequently during the baseball offseason, whether it’s at church, the Lexington Golf Club, or the high school to see his old teachers and spend time with the current student-athletes. He especially enjoys staying connected with the LABBB Collaborative and the high school’s unified basketball team, partnering with New Balance to outfit them with some swag. 

“One of the highlights of my offseason every year is coming back and hanging out with those kids,” said Frelick, who always makes sure to snag a turkey terrific from Neillios Gourmet Deli during those hometown visits. “Growing up, I dreamed of being a major league baseball player from Lexington … I take pride from being in the north, I definitely think it takes a different kind of breeding and toughness to play baseball here.”

Frelick pledged to BC baseball in between his freshman and sophomore years of high school. He was also offered a spot on the football team after his junior year of high school, which Frelick initially accepted, but ultimately decided to just play baseball.

An All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) performer from the jump, Frelick exploded as a junior en route to first-team All-ACC honors and recognition as the conference’s defensive player of the year for his standout work patrolling the outfield. The Brewers selected Frelick with the 15th overall pick of the 2021 MLB Draft. 

“I had him in the lineup his first game at BC, but because he had relatively so little experience in baseball I thought the upside was massive,” said Mike Gambino, Frelick’s coach at BC who now heads the Penn State program. “I didn’t think it would happen this quickly. When he got to professional baseball I thought he’d be an impact guy and move quickly, but not this quickly.

“It’s a combination of premium athletic ability and premium makeup,” Gambino said. 

With a $4 million signing bonus in hand, Frelick made his professional debut with the minor league franchise’s Arizona Complex League team later that summer. He climbed the organization’s ladder over the next two years, playing for teams in Zebulon, North Carolina; Grand Chute, Wisconsin; Biloxi, Mississippi and Nashville before debuting with the Brewers on July 22 of last year. Frelick collected three hits in his debut with strong defense and belted his first career home run two days later, immediately working his way into a regular starting role.

Frelick and the Brewers travel to Boston to face the Red Sox May 24-26. He played at Fenway Park a few times with Boston College, but matching up against his childhood favorite team means more.

“A lot of my closest friends have been out to Milwaukee to come and see me, but there’s definitely a lot of people who haven’t been able to come out who mean a lot to me and helped me with my career that will be able to go to those games,” Frelick said. “Being such a diehard Red Sox fan growing up, competing against them at Fenway is what I’m most excited for.”