Sal Frelick, Brewers opening day third baseman? The team's infield coach thinks it's possible.

PHOENIX – Sitting in the dugout Sunday before a game against the Colorado Rockies, Pat Murphy had a suggestion.

There hadn’t been enough chatter about Sal Frelick becoming an infielder during the manager's media sessions this spring.

“We haven’t emphasized it enough,” Murphy said. “It’ll be one of the best stories in baseball.”

At that moment, reality set in. No longer is Frelick’s work on the dirt throughout camp – which was already among the top storylines for the Milwaukee Brewers this spring – just a trial or experiment.

Sal Frelick, infielder, has become a legitimate option.

“He’s never played a down at third base,” Murphy said. “Never. He’s played shortstop in high school. Now how many years later he’s playing infield. Who could do that?”

Mookie Betts is one. Frelick, potentially, is another.

“He’s just an average potential great one,” Murphy said. “Makes me smile when I think of the kid. He believes he can do it. You just chuckle at it. It’s such a beautiful thing.”

Brewers infield coach has rave reviews of Frelick's defense

In the modern game, players transition from infield to outfield all the time. Pick a roster, any roster, and you can almost certainly find at least one player who’s done it.

But as Brewers infield coordinator Matt Erickson points out, there aren’t a whole lot of guys who have gone from outfield to second or third base or shortstop. There’s a good reason for that.

Erickson, however, really believes Frelick has the innate ability to pull this off.

“When you evaluate an infielder, you initially look at the lower half,” Erickson said. “How lively is his lower half? Does he have some body control? What is his leverage? He checks all those boxes immediately as far as his footwork. His decision making and his instincts have been impressive. Now synching up the different throws that it takes – coming in on a ball, going left on a ball, do you inside pivot, do you outside pivot – those are the things with experience he’ll get a little better at.

“But as far as his overall instincts and his footwork, the ceiling could be pretty good for him on the dirt.”

Not long after Murphy made the infield proposal to Frelick this winter, Erickson traveled to Massachusetts to discuss the possibility with the 23-year-old who hadn’t played a game at third since before high school. It was there that Erickson realized that not only was Frelick accepting of the challenge but even more so the magnitude to which he was ready to take it on with.

“I think his personality has something to do with that, his competitive nature,” Erickson said. “This isn’t something he’s half-in on.”

Erickson worked with Frelick, who also got help from former Red Sox star Dustin Pedroia, at Boston College. That work carried over the rest of the off-season for Frelick, then when camp began in Arizona in February he was working with the infield group every day.

To hear Murphy and Erickson talk about learning infield – and especially third base, which is where Frelick would primarily play on the dirt – the task sounds daunting. Ask Frelick about it, though, and it couldn’t sound more casual.

“It’s good so far. I’m still trying to get comfortable but it’s going be as many reps as I can, especially in games, to just get as comfortable as possible over there and make sure I can be serviceable” Frelick said. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen once the season starts but I just want to make sure I can really be serviceable and help the team.”

Frelick says he’s learned the most just by watching the intricacies of how others, both on his team and from afar, play the position. Their timing. Their footwork. Their tempo. How they shuffle into throws.

“I’ve been playing the game long enough where I’ve watched other guys, too,” Frelick said. “I’ve watched really good infielders and having some on my team really helps. To just go out and emulate what they do, pick up little things from them, that’s what’s helped me the most.”

The Brewers have taken note of how quickly and naturally Frelick picked up the nuances of the hot corner.

“To his credit, those decision making skills at third base usually take a little bit of time,” Erickson said. “I think those are some of the things that he does really well there. His awareness and ability to pick things up, his aptitude of learning that, understanding that and then applying it right now – that’s impressive.”

What are the chances of Frelick playing third early in the season?

The big question for Frelick at third is how his arm will play up. He never graded out as having a particularly strong arm as an outfielder, and arm strength matters even more at third.

To that point, Erickson also still wants to see how Frelick handles the various types of throws and different arm angles the position demands. Frelick says the biggest challenge has been adjusting to making different throws when he goes from outfield to infield and the vice versa.

This is part of the reason that Erickson believes, unsurprisingly, Frelick is still not on par with some of the other options on the Brewers roster.

Still, Frelick is leaps and bounds ahead of where even Erickson thought he would be in mid-March.

“I think it’s been better. It’s more consistent than I thought it would be,” Erickson said. “The person that he is, the competitor that he is, the mentality that he has about the team and himself, all correlate into, I think, the initial success of this project. Saying that, I would say it’s behind some of our other infielders right now with the total package. But it’s been better than you might think it would’ve gone when it started off.”

Frelick expects to still split time between infield and outfield, but Murphy isn’t shy about pointing out he’s firmly on the depth chart at third base. On Tuesday, Murphy even gave credence to the possibility Frelick could start there on opening day in two weeks.

Would Frelick be comfortable playing at third in a real game scenario right now?

“Yeah, I think so,” he said.

Murphy asked this same question to Erickson in recent days. The answer from the team’s foremost expert on infield defense?

“I said yes.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Brewers' move of Sal Frelick's to infield is going well