Vito Friscia

Vito Joseph Friscia

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 3", Weight 225 lb.

• School Hofstra University
• High School Valley Stream High School

• Born December 19, 1996 in Bethpage, NY USA

BR register page

Biographical Information

Vito Friscia has played in the minors and for the Italian national team.

He was All-Conference in football in high school and hit .443 as a junior, .455 as a sophomore. Going on to college, he hit .253/.415/.329 with 42 walks in 51 games as a freshman; he was 4th in the Colonial Athletic Association in walks. He improved to .305/.404/.532 as a sophomore and .353/.431/.514 as a junior, when he was the All-CAA DH. He played for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in the Cape Cod League that spring and batted .375/.487/.500 in 40 plate appearances. His senior year, he had a batting line of .317/.422/.530 with 15 doubles in 50 games, drawing 33 walks, and was second-team All-CAA at catcher. The Philadelphia Phillies took him in the 40th round of the 2019 amateur draft; the scout was Alex Agostino.

He was the main first baseman and backup catcher for the 2019 GCL Phillies East, hitting .275/.358/.415. The 2020 minor league season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in '21, he hit .265/.375/.416 for the Jersey Shore BlueClaws, as a 1B/DH primarily, and even got into a game for the AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs, going 1 for 3 with a walk and a run.

Italy had been using Italian-Americans in international tournaments since the 1970s and Friscia joined them for the 2021 European Championship. Starting at first base, he did an excellent job. In their opener, he hit cleanup and singled off Greece's Nick Pantos to bring in Noel González with Italy's first run; he was 2 for 2 with 2 walks, 2 runs and 3 RBI that day. His grand slam off Austria's Alessandro Zoufal ended the game in the 7th due to the mercy rule. He also went deep against Croatia's Hrvoje Tadić and Israel's Shlo Lipetz. In the Bronze Medal Game against Spain, he threw out Gabriel Lino at home in the 7th to keep the game scoreless. In the bottom of the inning, he singled off Jorge Balboa then scored later in the inning when Alessandro Deotto to drew a bases-loaded walk for the winning run in a 2-0 victory. In Italy's six games, he hit .526/.630/1.053 with 3 homers, 7 walks, 8 runs and 11 RBI, while fielding .976. He tied for 2nd on the Bronze Medalists in runs (one behind Leo Ferrini), led in hits (10, by two), led in homers (one ahead of Dario Pizzano), was 2nd in RBI (one behind Alberto Mineo), led in total bases (4 ahead of Pizzano), led in average (.055 ahead of Erick Epifano), led in slugging (.353 ahead of Mineo), led in OBP (.005 ahead of Epifano) and was second in walks (one behind González). For the 2021 Euros, he tied for 7th in runs, tied for 5th in hits, tied Dashenko Ricardo for 3rd in homers (one behind Assaf Lowengart and Matěj Hejma), tied Edison Valerio and Ferdinand Obed for 4th in RBI, was 5th in total bases, was 2nd in average (.156 behind Valerio, .002 ahead of #3 Marek Chlup), was 2nd in slugging (.073 behind Valerio), ranked 3rd in OBP (after Valerio and MVP Roger Bernadina), was 2nd in OPS (184 behind Valerio) and tied Ty Kelly and Mitch Glasser for 5th in walks.