This is a David Fry Appreciation Post
Every day is Fryday
A David Fry all-star campaign certainly wasn’t on my bingo card for the Guardians’ 2024 season.
So far this season, the player I once thought was a platoon bat at best, David Fry, has made a resounding case to be the league’s suprise player. Fry was the player to be named later in the trade that sent then-Indians starting pitcher/reliever J.C. Mejia to the Milwaukee Brewers in November of 2021. Mejia was notoriously bad, sporting an 8.5 ERA in 52.1 IP. The way I see it, getting a player at all for Mejia would be a steal alone. But for that player to end up being a high-impact bat in the middle of your order? Now, that’s just highway robbery.
As of Friday, May 24th, Fry is putting up absurd numbers. He is hitting .349, with an on-base percentage of .486 (getting on-base almost once every other plate appearance is insane) and a slugging percentage of .590. His wRC+? 202. He also sports superb plate discipline numbers, walking 17.4% of the time. Tack on the fact that he can play almost every position under the sun (he even pitched a scoreless inning once!), and you have an insanely versatile player on your ballclub. Also, he gets the extra intimidation factor by having Loud and Heavy by Cody Jinks as his walk-up song.
Speaking of versatile, his platoon days may be past David Fry as well. This may be up for debate, as his expected stats against righties are along the league average line, but Fry is slashing .300/.379/.440 against right-handed pitching with a 138 wRC+. But as I said, those expected stats are still depicting him to be around an average mark against them. Fry against righties posts an expected slash line of .344/.333/.363 with a .312 xwOBA. Still, though, those are decent enough numbers to be a starter in my eyes.
But, no matter what his expected metrics may show, if he’s getting lucky or not, or whatever it may be, the truth stands that David Fry is exceeding every expectation set forth for him. At such a late point in his career, I’m sure not many would have seen this surge coming for the 28-year-old. Fry is mashing everything in the zone and is in the top 10 percentiles in taking pitches outside the zone. Such a combination of contact, power and plate discipline is borderline outrageous.
Since the start of the season, David Fry has seriously started to show something he never has before. I am so glad that he has taken such a bounding leap in his production when it was already thought that he has reached its limits. Fry has given me a newfound excitement to see how the rest of the season will play out for him and the rest of the team just with such an amazing performance so far. Everything is clicking for him, and I just wanted to take the time to recognize how much of an impact he has had for us in the early going.