Max Fried Addresses His 2015 FanGraphs Scouting Report

Max Fried is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Now in his ninth big league season, and his first with the New York Yankees after eight with the Atlanta Braves, the 31-year-old southpaw is 9-2 with a 1.89 ERA over 95 innings. His career marks are impressive as well. Since debuting in August 2017, Fried has a 2.96 ERA and 3.25 FIP to go with a sparkling 82-38 record. His .683 winning percentage ranks behind only Clayton Kershaw (.695) among active pitchers with at least 100 decisions.

When our 2015 Atlanta Braves Top Prospect list was published in January of that year, Fried was coming off a 2014 season that saw him miss the first three months with forearm soreness and throw just 10 2/3 innings in the low minors before undergoing Tommy John surgery in July. Acquired by Atlanta from the San Diego Padres shortly before our list went up, the seventh overall pick in the 2012 draft was ranked third in the Braves system by Kiley McDaniel, then our lead prospect analyst.

What did Fried’s 2015 FanGraphs scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think about it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what McDaniel wrote and asked Fried to respond to it.

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“The 6-foot-4, 185 pound lefty was half of what may have been the best one-two punch in high school baseball history, with Nationals top prospect RHP Lucas Giolito at Harvard Westlake High School in 2012.”

“It was definitely a good little thing,” replied Fried. “It didn’t mention that Jack Flaherty was in there, too. He was probably a better performer in high school than both of us. His stats blew mine and Lucas’ out of the water.”

“Scouts were concerned going into the 2012 draft spring about the unusually high volume of pitches with limited down time on the high school’s pitching program.”

“That’s news to me,” said Fried. “My senior year, in total, I think I threw close to 100 innings, but throwing and workload was never a problem for me. I played football, basketball, and baseball kind of every year; I never really played baseball year round. The first time I really gave it a full go with no other sports was my senior year. That was my first time adding workload.

“I would say that the throwing I did was very moderate,” Fried added. “Guys are throwing year round right now. They’re throwing all the time. They’re doing velo programs. I pretty much just… I mean, we did throwing programs, and we played a couple games in the winter, but I was also still playing outfield my whole senior year. I wasn’t on a strict pitching program.”

“The Braves acquired him from San Diego this winter as the headliner in the Justin Upton deal.”

“I was shocked,” Fried said of the December 2014 swap. “That was the first year A.J. Preller was the GM, and I think the first time that I spoke to him was when he told me I was getting traded. I’d just had Tommy John, and then I got traded to the Braves. But everything happens for a reason, and I was able to have a lot of really good years there. I grew a lot.”

“Fried was shut down early in 2014 as a precaution; his subsequent MRI was clean and he went on a long rehab program, and when he went back to the mound, his elbow popped a few starts into his return.”

“At the time, I was told it was clean,” the southpaw recalled. “I probably had some other stuff in there that wasn’t healed, and sometimes it happens where you just get surgery.”

“Even in those few starts before his elbow popped in 2014, Fried’s stuff was still pretty close to his peak stuff: 90-93, hitting 96 mph with a plus curveball and an improving, above-average changeup.”

“My velocity was actually very down,” said Fried. “I think my first outing in the AZL that year I was like 84-86, touching 87. At that point, I had been rehabbing so long, and it was just like, ‘Send me out there.’ I think I eventually got up to like 88-91, touching a 93; the day I blew out, I think I touched 93. But that year my velocity was down, for sure.”

“His stuff will vary start to start and his changeup flashes 60 for some scouts, but not often and never at the same time as his curveball.”

“Yeah, it was a bad changeup,” acknowledged Fried. “I changed my changeup after the 2019 season. I was more of like a Vulcan split between my middle and ring finger, and it wasn’t a very good pitch. It would be good when it was down, but when I left it up, I would give up a lot of damage. I gave up too many homers in 2019, so I changed the grip going into 2020.”

“The upside is huge, with shades of Cole Hamels at his best.”

“That’s a really nice compliment,” replied Fried. “I’ve gotten to know Cole really well, and to be able to have his career would be an incredible accomplishment. If I’m able to live up to that, I feel that would be pretty good.”

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Previous “Old Scouting Reports Revisited” interviews can be found through these links: Cody Bellinger, Matthew Boyd, Dylan Cease, Matt Chapman, Erick Fedde, Kyle Freeland, Lucas Giolito, Randal Grichuk, Ian Happ, Jeff Hoffman, Tanner Houck, Matthew Liberatore, Sean Newcomb, Bailey Ober, Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Joe Ryan, Max Scherzer, Marcus Semien.