Fryer Grinding It Out

Growing up, Eric Fryer was very aware of Mike Matheny. Not necessarily because he was a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals, but because Fryer was a star catcher for Reynoldsburg High School–the same school Matheny graduated from sixteen years prior.

“We knew a lot of the same people growing up, played for a lot of the same teams, same area,” said Fryer, who helped lead the Raiders to the state semi-finals as a senior in 2004.

Unlike Matheny, Fryer went to Ohio State instead of Michigan, but both were later drafted by Milwaukee.

“Yeah, there’s some parallels there–not so much right now,” downplayed Fryer. “Obviously, he’s a Gold Glove catcher and I’m still working my way to find a roster spot at some point.”

“I’ve watched him through his career and known that he’s been a catch and throw guy,” said Matheny. “The Twins really liked what he did behind the plate. He’s continued to try and figure out the offensive side but just watching him–you’re not going to have a kid who’s going to work any harder. He’s a grinder and there’s a place for those guys in the game.”

That the manager had followed his career and knew of his work was a pleasant surprise to Fryer as the two catchers had met previously but were not in any regular contact over the years until Matheny spoke with him about the Cardinals interest this off-season.

“To hear that he was aware of what I was doing and followed my career, that was pretty special,” admitted Fryer. “Here it sounded like I had a chance to at least show what I can do and maybe work into a roster spot.”

“I really appreciated that. It’s nice to kind of know before you sign on the dotted line what’s expected of you and where the lay of the land is…it sounded like something I wanted to be a part of. Obviously, it’s a great organization.”

“I just explained to him the landscape of where we were,” said Matheny. “When we were originally talking with him, we hadn’t even brought in Brayan Pena yet–it was still Tony Cruz, but still just being honest with how it looked in our organization and some of the opportunities that could potentially be there.”

Much of that opportunity for Fryer and the other catchers this spring was created by Yadier Molina gradually being worked back into the mix, but there is also opportunity created by the departures of Ed Easley, Cody Stanley, and Travis Tartamella from the organization–all three handled the catching duties at Memphis (AAA) last season.

“He’s wired the right way as a catcher,” continued Matheny. “He’s got good hands, got a good arm. It’s just a matter of how well he puts the rest of his game together.”

Over the last three seasons, Fryer appeared in 49 games for the Minnesota Twins and caught 299.1 innings. Thus far in Spring Training, Eric leads the Cardinals with 42 innings behind the plate.