The New York Yankees had a Zoom meeting with left-handed starter Max Fried yesterday, with the meeting going very well according to Michael Kay of the YES Network. Jeff Passan followed up those reports by mentioning the team’s interest in the left-hander, but also mentioned that the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays are also showing serious interest in acquiring his services. It’s unclear if Fried is only an option if the team misses out on Juan Soto, but his excellent numbers over the last five seasons would intrigue any contender.
With the best ERA for any pitcher (min. 500 IP) since 2020, Fried is a top-of-the-rotation presence, and whether it’s with the Yankees or not, there’s a good chance he’s heading for the AL East.
Why Max Fried Could Be the Perfect Fit For the Yankees’ Rotation
Max Fried is one of the best left-handed pitchers in the game, sporting a deep pitch mix that includes seven different pitches, and it allows him to generate tons of soft contact on the ground for outs. He has the fifth-best groundball rate among starting pitchers since 2022 (55.3%), and while Fried won’t overpower a hitter with a dominant fastball, his K-BB% numbers are elite compared to most groundball maestros.
Among starters with a groundball rate above 50%, Max Fried is tied with Hunter Brown for the best K-BB% (17.6%), sporting an above-average mark while being an elite damage preventer. His deep pitch mix plays a huge role in his damage prevention, sporting three different fastballs, three different breaking balls, and a changeup that he can all mix in with ease.
There isn’t a pitch he throws more than 33.6% of the time in his arsenal, with six of his seven pitches having a wOBA below .330 this past season. The ability to vary movement profiles as often as he does can create an extremely difficult at-bat for opposing hitters to handle, and the underlying metrics suggest he has outlier damage prevention abilities.
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If the Yankees want to add a top-of-the-rotation arm who can take this rotation to new heights, Max Fried slots in perfectly as either the #1 or #2 depending on Gerrit Cole’s performance in 2025. There are some concerns with Fried, who has spent time on the IL in every season he’s pitched in the big leagues with the exception of 2017. In 2022 he was injured with a concussion on a weird play at Citi Field, but last year he dealt with a forearm issue which could raise some concerns.
He has only made 30 starts twice in a season, and has only exceeded the 180-inning threshold only one time. The Yankees would have to proceed with caution and do their background work on his medicals if they were to add him to the rotation, especially as he enters his age-31 season. In theory the way he pitches should age somewhat well; he isn’t reliant on raw stuff and has seen his fastball velocity steadily climb up as he’s gotten older, but there’s no certainty he’ll remain effective for long.
Max Fried is still a brilliant starter, a true ace who has the run prevention numbers to support the notion that he’s one of the best in the game. That being said teams will do their due diligence and check off all of the boxes on whether Fried is someone they’re willing to make a hefty investment into or not. Some believe he could crack the $200 million threshold on a contract, but he is expected to get less than Corbin Burnes, whom the Yankees also met with this week.