Max Fried

Max Fried was born and grew up in Santa Monica, California, the middle son of Carrie and Jonathan Fried, and is Jewish. Fried was a member of the 2009 Maccabiah Games Team USA Juniors baseball team that won a gold medal in Israel.

Fried first attended Montclair College Preparatory School, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, where he played baseball, football, and basketball. He was named the 2011 Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Male High School Athlete of the Year.

After Montclair Prep cut its baseball team subsequent to his junior year, Fried then transferred to Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. In 2012, his senior year, Fried was 8–2 with a 2.02 ERA, and 105 strikeouts in 66 innings. He was a 2012 Rawlings-Perfect Game 1st Team All-American.

The San Diego Padres selected Fried in the first round with the seventh overall selection of the 2012 Major League Baseball draft. Fried chose to sign with the Padres for $3 million despite his commitment to the UCLA Bruins baseball team. Baseball America rated him the top left-hander available in the draft.

Fried made his professional debut for the Arizona League Padres in 2012 and spent the whole season there. In 2014, he was ranked the Padres’ top pitching prospect, and their No. 2 prospect overall, by MLB.com. Fried was injured for much of the year and did not make his season debut until July. The next month, on August 20, Fried underwent Tommy John surgery; he missed the remainder of the 2014 season.

On December 19, 2014, the Padres traded Fried to the Atlanta Braves. He missed the entire 2015 season while recovering from surgery.

He returned to action on April 9, 2016, for the Rome Braves. Fried spent all of 2016 with Rome, pitching to an 8–7 record and 3.93 ERA in 21 games (20 starts), striking out 112 batters in 103.0 innings.

Fried was called up to the Atlanta Braves on August 5, 2017. He debuted on August 8, throwing two scoreless innings against the Philadelphia Phillies, displaying what David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called “a devastating curveball”. Two weeks later, Fried returned to the minor leagues, joining the AAA Gwinnett Braves.

At the end of the 2017 season, Fried joined the Peoria Javelinas of the Arizona Fall League.

Fried began the 2018 season with the AA Mississippi Braves. After one game, he joined the Gwinnett Stripers. He was called up to Atlanta in April. In 33.2 innings pitched for the Braves in the 2018 regular season, he was 1–4 with 44 strikeouts and a 2.94 ERA.

Fried was placed in the bullpen at the start of the 2019 season and later moved to the starting rotation.

In 2019 Fried was 17–6 with a 4.02 ERA and struck out 173 batters. His 17 wins were second in the National League, and his .739 won-loss percentage was fifth in the league. His 9.398 strikeouts per nine innings were the fifth-highest in a single season of any Braves pitcher in history.

On defense, he led all NL pitchers in assists with 34. He had a 6 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) rating, the best in the major leagues among pitchers. Fried also batted .196 (9th among NL pitchers)/.262 (6th)/.268 (10th), and led all NL pitchers with at least 50 plate appearances in runs (11) and BB/SO ratio (0.31), while having the second-lowest swinging strike percentage (7.1%), third in contact percentage (81.6%), and tying for third in walks (5).

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 regular season, Fried was a perfect 7–0 with a 2.25 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. He led the major leagues in won-loss percentage (1.000) and pickoffs (4), led the National League in WAR for pitchers (2.9), was second in the NL in Wins Above Replacement-all behind Mookie Betts, and tied for second in the NL in wins.

On defense, Fried led all major league pitchers in assists for the second consecutive season (with 15), tied for the MLB lead in pickoffs (4), and led all pitchers with five Defensive Runs Saved.

Fried won the 2020 NL Gold Glove Award. He also won the Fielding Bible Award as the top fielder among pitchers. He came in fifth in voting for the 2020 NL Cy Young Award.

He was named a starter on the 2020 All-MLB First Team.

In the 2021 regular season, Fried was 14–7 with a 3.04 ERA (9th in the National League), and his 14 wins were 5th in the NL. In 28 starts he threw 2 shutouts (leading the league), as in 165.2 innings he averaged 7.5 hits, 0.8 home runs (3rd), and 2.2 walks per 9 innings, for a 1.087 WHIP. His 8.584 strikeouts/9 innings were the 11th-most in Braves history. His 51.8% ground ball percentage was 3rd-highest in the NL, and he induced softly hit balls 20.0% of the time (5th).

As a batter, he hit .273/.322/.327. His batting average and on-base percentage led all pitchers, while his slugging percentage ranked second. He was a good enough hitter to be asked to pinch-hit four times.

On defense, Fried led the league in range factor/game as a pitcher (1.61), in assists as a pitcher for the third consecutive season (37), and in Defensive Runs Saved for the third season in a row (6). For the second consecutive season, he tied for the major league lead in pickoffs (6).

Fried won the final game of the 2021 World Series with six shutout innings against the Astros with Houston’s three-time batting champion José Altuve observing: “He was almost unhittable.”

Fried won the 2021 NL Gold Glove Award for the second year in a row. He also won the 2021 NL Silver Slugger Award for pitchers. Fried became the third MLB pitcher in history to win both the Silver Slugger Award and the Gold Glove Award in the same season. Fried was the final recipient of the Silver Slugger Award for pitchers, as the National League adopted the designated hitter in 2022.

He was named a starter on the 2021 All-MLB Second Team, earning his second consecutive All-MLB selection.

Fried’s salary for the 2022 season was set at $6.85 million via arbitration. Based on his early-season performance, he was named to the All-Star team.

Career Stats

Source: “Max Fried,” Wikipedia.

Photo: Jeffrey Hyde, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.