The New York Yankees are hoping Max Fried can throw like he did in 2021, when he won the World Series for the Atlanta Braves.
Fried agreed to sign a $218 million, eight-year contract with the Yankees on Tuesday, two days after losing Juan Soto to the rival Mets, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
Fried’s contract is the highest for a left-handed pitcher in baseball history, worth $1 million more than David Price’s seven-year agreement with the Boston Red Sox prior to the 2016 season. Fried’s agreement, first reported by ESPN, was contingent on a successful physical, according to a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the contract had not been finalized.
“He’s one of the game’s really, really good pitchers and has a really good track record now of success,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday. “He’s a special talent.”
Yankees supporters were outraged when Soto chose the Mets’ $765 million, 15-year deal over the Yankees’ $760 million, 16-year offering. The Yankees then diverted funds to starting pitching, though Fried carries considerable risk: The two-time All-Star has been on the injured list ten times since 2018, including at least once per season.
Fried, a high school friend of Jack Flaherty and Lucas Giolito at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, received the fourth-highest deal among pitchers, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, and Washington’s Stephen Strasburg.
Strasburg has not pitched since 2022 and has retired.
During the discussions, the Yankees’ staff met with Fried via Zoom.
“Obviously watching him from afar over the last several years you know this is a guy you can tell really competes well on the mound and that came across in our meeting with him,” said Boone.
Fried, who spent his first eight seasons with the Braves, joins a rotation that includes Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Nestor Cortes, and Marcus Stroman, raising the possibility of future transfers. He came to an arrangement on the day Cortes turned 30 and Rodón turned 32.
Fried, a three-time Gold Glove winner who will be 31 on January 18, has one of the most diverse repertoires in the majors, throwing seven different pitches. This year, he averaged 93.9 mph on his fastball and threw it 33.6% of the time. Fried threw 21% curveballs, 15.6% sinkers, 13.6% changeups, 5.9% sweepers, 5.6% sliders, and 4.7% cutters.
He went 11-10 with a 3.25 ERA in 29 starts this year, striking out 166 and walking a career-high 57 in 174 1/3 innings. Fried missed time with left forearm neuritis, his seventh season on the IL.
He had previous IL stints for a blister on his pitching hand’s middle finger and strained left groin, a blister on his left index finger, a muscle spasm on the left side of his back, a strained right hamstring, a concussion and strained left hamstring, a strained left forearm, and a blister on his left index finger.
“There’s inherent risks,” Boone told reporters, “but we feel like he’s a really good pitcher and the way he goes about it, prepares, trains, we feel like he’s doing everything he can to be a guy that’s able to consistently go to the post.”
Fried was the seventh overall choice in San Diego’s 2012 amateur draft.
He underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2014 and was dealt to the Braves in December 2014 as part of a six-player transaction that also brought outfielder Justin Upton to the Padres.
He made his MLB debut in August 2017 and was optioned to the minors five times in 2018.
Fried went 17-6 with a 4.02 ERA in 2019, then 7-0 with a 2.25 ERA in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, ranking seventh in the National League Cy Young Award voting.
He finished 14-7 with a 3.04 ERA in 2021, when he pitched six scoreless innings to defeat Houston in World Series Game 6, and 14-7 with a 2.48 ERA in 2022, when he made his first All-Star appearance. Fried finished 8-1 with a 2.55 ERA in 14 starts in 2023.
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