Daily Journal Baseball Player of the Year: Bradley-Bourbonnais’ Cody Freitas

Bradley-Bourbonnais senior Cody Freitas did not start the Class 4A Normal Community West Regional semifinal game on the mound May 29, but he certainly finished it there.

Freitas came in from third base to pitch with one out in the bottom of the seventh, the Boilermakers up 1-0 and Normal Community West runners on second and third. After walking his first batter to load the bases, Freitas struck out two in a row to keep the Boilermakers’ season alive.

Two days later in the regional championship, Freitas allowed just four hits and one run against Minooka, one of the state’s top teams, and drove in the winning run in the top of the seventh to give the Boilermakers a huge upset win and their second regional title in a row.

It is for these big moments, and plenty of smaller ones in between, that Freitas has been named the 2025 Daily Journal Baseball Player of the Year.

“It’s just being able to get out there on that mount or in that box, slow down my heart rate, control my breathing and just think of it as a game,” Freitas said. “Everyone on this field puts their jersey on the same way. I’m just another kid out here playing baseball and having fun.”

While every player might put on their uniform the same way, most can’t do what Freitas does once out on the diamond. He hit .343 this season with a team-high seven home runs while throwing 43 innings with an ERA of 2.50 and 52 strikeouts.

With Freitas being a four-year varsity player, Bradley-Bourbonnais head coach Brad Schweigert said he has seen Freitas grow from a talented but raw freshman into a player he believes is one of the state’s very best.

“I saw him as a freshman and sophomore a lot of times try to force action and force the game to come to him,” Schweigert said. “I saw as he got older through his junior and senior year, especially his senior year, kind of letting the game come to him. ... I think he’s literally one of the top five two-way players in the state, from what I’ve seen and from what other coaches have told me.”

Freitas has been playing baseball most of his life, starting with his dad Greg, who played growing up, and his older brother Michael, who just finished his fourth season at Olivet Nazarene University.

He always enjoyed the game, from playing catch with family at home and then in various levels of youth baseball. But it was heading into high school that Freitas started to realize that baseball could be a major part of his future.

“That summer going into freshman year, I was pitching and actually hit 90 [miles per hour] for the first time,” he said. “I was like ‘oh man, I’ve got something going here. ... I think this is something I want to pursue.’ ”

Freitas will be heading to John A. Logan College in Cartersville, a perennial powerhouse at the NJCAA Division I level, to play baseball. Originally an Arizona commit, he decided Logan would be a place that could help him grow and improve as a player while helping support his goal of reaching the professional ranks.

“I’m really excited about the facilities there, the training and the coaches,” he said. “Also going [to junior college], it keeps me draft eligible every year. So I’m looking forward to being draft eligible year and being able to push myself to the next level to see if I can get drafted.”

Those professional aspirations are driving Freitas into his first college season, but regardless of what baseball provides for him in the future, he said it already has contributed to his life in many ways.

“Baseball has been a life-changer for me,” he said. “It’s definitely taught me a lot of lessons. I’ve been through a lot of hard things in baseball, too, with injuries and whatever baseball brings at me. But it really helped shape who I am today, and really pushed me to be a better person on the field and also off the field.”