Brewers: Crew Loses Minor League Infielder as PTBNL in November Deal

Milwaukee Brewers fans spent so much time focusing on the MLB lockout over the last few months that it becomes easy to forget some of the moves that were made prior to the lockout beginning. Today, one made its way back into the news.

In November, Milwaukee president of baseball operations David Stearns swung a small trade with the Cleveland Guardians. The Brewers would receive right-handed pitcher J.C. Mejia for a player to be named later.

Mejia is only 25-years-old and made his debut just last season. He pitched in 17 games with 11 starts, going 1-7 and putting up a 8.25 ERA with a 1.605 WHIP. He gave up 13 home runs over those 17 appearances.

The Brewers will move forward seeing if Mejia can work his way into the reliever mix, seeing as they already have a pretty solid group of exciting young starters. But until now, we didn’t know who Milwaukee would be giving up in this acquisition.

On Sunday, it was revealed that the Brewers would be sending minor league infielder David Fry to the Guardians as the player to be named later.

David Fry was a 7th round draft pick back in 2018 by the Brewers out of Northwestern State. That same year, he played in 61 games for rookie level Helena, impressing early with a .315/.406/.563 slash line there with 15 doubles and 12 homers.

He would spend the entire next season at then Low-A Wisconsin, playing in 134 games. He would slash .258/.329/.444, be named a starter for the Midwest League All-Star Game, and finish the season as the league leader in doubles (41) and RBIs (T-70).

2021 saw Fry spend most of his time with Double-A Biloxi (75 games) with a brief stint at Triple-A Nashville (19). He combined at both levels to slash .255/.348/.449 with 19 doubles and 12 homers.

Fry could be close to knocking on the door of the big leagues. But at catcher, he is blocked in the system by Omar Narvaez and Pedro Severino at the major league level as well as top 30 prospect Mario Feliciano and offseason acquisition Brett Sullivan in the minors.

It’s possible that Fry could’ve worked his way up at one of the corner infield spots as he saw time at both spots in the minors. But in the end, Cleveland decided he would be worth bringing on as a part of the Mejia deal and Milwaukee obliged.

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Let’s wish Fry well in his new home and hope that this trade works out for the best for all parties involved.