Soto-Free Yankees Turn to Max Fried

Two days after coming up short in their bid to retain Juan Soto, the Yankees made their first major move of the offseason, landing left-hander Max Fried via an eight-year, $218 million contract. The deal is pending a physical, a nontrivial matter for a pitcher who has made 30 starts just once in the past four seasons while landing on the injured list seven times, though only one of those absences was for longer than three weeks.

Though he was chosen by the Padres in the first round of the 2012 draft out of Harvard-Westlake High Schol in Los Angeles, Fried — who will turn 31 on January 18 — has spent his entire eight-year big league career with the Braves, helping them to seven playoff berths, including a 2021 World Series victory; in fact, he helped seal the deal by throwing six shutout innings in the Game 6 clincher against the Astros. After making just 14 starts in 2023 due to a forearm strain that cost him three months and then a blister that limited him to 10 innings (four in the postseason) after September 12, he returned to take the ball 29 times in ’24, throwing 174.1 innings with a 3.25 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, and a 3.64 xERA. While those were his highest marks in each category since 2019, his ERA still ranked fifth among National League qualifiers and his FIP seventh.

Those numbers were not only quite respectable at face value, they were more impressive once you account for his early-season struggles. In his first turn on March 30, Fried retired just two of the seven Phillies he faced while throwing 43 pitches, walking three and allowing three runs before getting pulled. In his second start, against the Diamondbacks on April 6, he yielded six first-inning runs including a leadoff homer by Ketel Marte (who added an RBI double in the same inning) but hung around until the fifth, when he got into a jam and was charged with two more runs. But from that point to the end of the regular season, he posted a 2.82 ERA and 3.26 FIP, and at times he was downright unhittable.

On that note: On April 23 against the Marlins in Atlanta, Fried allowed just one hit over his first six innings and not only finished with a three-hit shutout but a Maddux, as he needed just 92 pitches to go the distance. In his next start, on April 28 in Seattle, he threw six hitless innings, walking two and striking out seven before getting pulled after 100 pitches. On May 11 against the Mets at Citi Field, he threw seven hitless innings, walking three and striking out five before getting the hook after 109 pitches. Two starts later, on May 28 against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, he took a no-hitter into the sixth and finished with a three-hit, two-run (one unearned) complete game while striking out nine. In the wake of a 17-day IL stint in late July and early August due to a bout of ulnar neuritis, he continued his anti-hit parade, taking a no-hitter into the fifth against the Dodgers on September 16 and a one-hitter into the seventh against the Royals on September 27; in the latter, he came within one hit and one out of another Maddux.

Fried turned to his sinker more often in 2024 (15.8%) than ’23 (11.7%) and got fewer swinging strikes than in the past (10.2%, down from 11.7%), but he once again did an excellent job of suppressing hard contact. His 86.3 mph average exit velocity placed in the 95th percentile, his 5% barrel rate in the 89th percentile, and his 34.6% hard-hit rate in the 81st percentile. All of those numbers were more or less in line with his career marks, and his marks since the start of 2020. Per MLB.com’s Thomas Harrigan, Fried’s 4.7% barrel rate is the lowest among starters with at least 1,000 balls in play over the past five seasons, 0.1% below second-ranked Justin Steele, and 0.7% below third-ranked Corbin Burnes, the top remaining frontline starter on the free agent market. Meanwhile, Fried’s 86.1 mph average in that same span is second, and his 32.7% hard-hit rate is tied for fourth.

My colleague Michael Rosen, who cited those numbers in a November 25 article, additionally noted that Fried has done a very good job of preventing doubles in that span, with just 16 allowed this year (tied for the lowest among qualifiers) and against 3.5% of all hitters faced since 2020, the sixth-lowest mark out of 173 pitchers with at least 300 innings in that span. Per Rosen, Fried’s skill in that area shows up in a model called Mix+ that Driveline “uses to quantify the breadth of an arsenal. Mix+ calculates the pairwise distance between a pitcher’s offerings in three-dimensional space when the faster pitch reaches the plate and then adjusts for the frequency of each pitch.” More:

“[Pi]tchers who rank higher in Mix+ should receive more takes owing to the spread of potential pitch movement patterns. But the positive effects of a wide arsenal also extend to the quality of contact that a pitcher allows… Because hitters must account for a variety of potential shapes at varying speeds, they’re less likely to unleash an ‘A’ swing.”

Fried mixes his 94-mph fastball and 94-mph sinker with an outstanding two-plane curveball that produced a 38.1% called strike and walk rate, and held batters to a .154 AVG and .285 SLG. By Mix+, only Fried’s teammate, NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale, was better in 2024.

As for what this means for the Yankees, this is the biggest contract ever for a left-handed pitcher, and the fourth largest in history, with new teammate Gerrit Cole still first at nine years and $324 million. Fried’s deal is $36 million more in sticker price than that of two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell’s deal with the Dodgers, but Snell’s covers only five years. Once Snell’s $66 million in deferred salary is factored in, his AAV for competitive balance tax purposes is $31.36 million compared to Fried’s $27.25 million.

Via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, general manager Brian Cashman pursued Snell, but the Yankees believed they couldn’t sign both him and Soto, and so declined to make an offer since the slugger’s situation had not yet been resolved. They lost Soto to the Mets, who landed him with a whopping 15-year, $765 million deal on Sunday. During his Tuesday media session here at the Winter Meetings in Dallas, manager Aaron Boone said that one route the team could take to improving in the wake of Soto’s departure was to upgrade their pitching:

“There’s more than one way to build a team or skin a cat. Maybe it allows you to be more defensive. Maybe it allows you to play in the pitching market more often… Last year, we had an outstanding offense, obviously anchored by Juan and Aaron [Judge] hitting back to back. That’s not the only way to be a great team, though, you know what I mean? We’ll see. We’re going to try our best to, and are confident that when we get to spring training, we’ll be in a position that we’ll be one of those teams that has a chance to go compete for it all.”

With Cole remaining in the fold despite exercising his opt-out clause in November, the Yankees now have a rotation surplus, with Carlos Rodón and Clarke Schmidt the likely third and fourth starters, respectively, and AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil, Nestor Cortes, and Marcus Stroman all options to round out the rotation. The 26-year-old Gil, who posted a 3.50 ERA and 4.14 FIP in 151.2 innings after missing most of the previous two seasons due to Tommy John surgery, has four years of club control remaining and thus by far the highest trade value of the trio. The 30-year-old Cortes, who posted a 3.77 ERA and 3.84 FIP in 174.1 innings, has one more year of control and will make something in the neighborhood of $7-8 million; he has trade value as a potential low-cost stopgap. The 33-year-old Stroman posted a 4.31 ERA and 4.62 FIP in 154.2 innings in the first year of a two-year, $37 million deal for the Yankees, but by the postseason had become a bystander. He’ll make $18.5 million in 2025, with an $18 million player option for ’26 if he reaches 140 innings.

Stroman’s salary could be used in a trade to offset the Yankees taking on another contract, which may be a necessity since they may not be able to fill all of their major needs via free agency. Gleyber Torres is a free agent, so they need either a second or third baseman, with Jazz Chisholm Jr. slotting into the other spot. Both first base (where Anthony Rizzo and Ben Rice struggled) and left field (where Alex Verdugo was one of the least productive players at the position) are ripe for significant upgrades. The Yankees do plan to return Judge to right field with Soto’s departure, opening up center field for prospect Jasson Domínguez, but they will need some outfield depth and insurance in case he struggles. In theory, Stroman’s money could serve to help offset the remaining $74 million on Nolan Arenado’s deal from 2025–27; the Cardinals were connected to Stroman when he was a free agent last winter. [Update: the Yankees are not among the six teams included on Arenado’s list of teams to which he’d accept a trade.]

As for the contract, Dan Szymborski ran the ZiPS projections in an earlier Instagraphs post, but here it is again:

That’s just 13.0 WAR over eight years for a value of $120 million. ZiPS is obviously quite wary of Fried’s ability to stay healthy, and less enamored with his 23.2% strikeout rate than, say, Snell’s 34.7% mark. But while Fried’s durability may be in question, some of his absences in recent years were for minor injuries (blisters in 2021 and ’23, hamstring strains in those same years) or fluky ones (a concussion in 2022). His forearm strain cost him nearly three months, though his bout of neuritis sidelined him for just 17 days.

Eight years for any pitcher is a risk, and at the dollars the Yankees are throwing at Fried, the deal is hardly without potential downside if things go south. Plus, there’s always the possibility that Hal Steinbrenner once again pulls up short when it comes to the Yankees’ other needs after making his one big splash of the offseason. Still, as Boone said, there’s more than one way for the Yankees to improve, and here they’ve fortified an already strong rotation while giving themselves some options to deal for more help.