Jake Fraley discusses his slow start to 2025

While Elly De La Cruz and Matt McLain have hit the ground running to start 2025, the rest of the Reds’ offense has been lackluster through five games. No one has been struggling more than Jake Fraley.

Fraley is one-for-15 with his lone hit coming on a flare single up the middle. This follows a spring training where Fraley was 7-for-42 (a .142 average and a .533 OPS).

“He was trying to make some swing adjustments, and I think he was probably a little frustrated,” Terry Francona said. “Sometimes, you just want to see some results. But then the last four-or-five days of camp (it was better). That’s what sometimes spring training can be, especially for a veteran. You don’t need to look at his batting average. We need to get him to the point where he felt good today.”

In 2023, before he broke his toe, Fraley was one of the best platoon bats in baseball and mashed against right-handed pitching. In July of that year, Fraley was the cleanup hitter on a Reds’ team that was one of the hottest in baseball. He had the 10th best OPS in MLB vs. right-handed pitchers, ahead of Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. He was the Reds’ second-best power hitter against right-handers, on pace for 27 home runs and 115 RBIs.

But then last year, Fraley didn’t have any of that power. He did post a solid .277 average, but he had a below average OPS (.716) and only hit five homers in 116 games.

How important is it for Fraley to reestablish that power swing in 2025?

“I’m just trying to put the bat on the ball,” Fraley said. “That’s about it.”

It’s been a frustrating start to the season for him, and he’s not making much hard contact.

During spring training, Fraley worked on some adjustments that he and the Reds hoped would lead to a step forward in 2025.

“They came to me with a few things to polish off that I tried to work on through the spring,” Fraley said. “I got to a point with my new stance where basically we turned the table and went back to my old stance but still working on the right drills to help polish those movements out.”

Fraley said that the last week of spring training felt “really, really good” as he drove line drives to left field. He had one of those swings on Monday, but it didn’t carry over as he went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts on Tuesday.

It’s been a grind for him so far this season.

”That’s baseball,” Fraley said.