The Braves love Max Fried. They’d love it if he remains a Brave. They’ll extend a one-year qualifying offer, which he’ll refuse. Then they’ll make what they consider a competitive long-term offer. What are the chances he accepts it?
Better than zero, though not much better.
The reality of baseball is that almost every team who buys a big-name pitcher overpays. I can think of one team that didn’t – the Atlanta Braves. At the 1992 winter meetings in Louisville, Ky., John Schuerholz announced the signing of Greg Maddux.
Maddux, then 26, had just won his first Cy Young as a Cub. He would win three more for his new club. The Braves’ initial cost for his matchless services – $28 million over five seasons.
Last winter, the Phillies re-upped Zack Wheeler for $126 million over three seasons, or $42M per annum. Wheeler is among the best in the business, but he’s 34 and hasn’t won a Cy Young and won’t this year, either. (Chris Sale will.)
Fried is 30. He has finished among the top five in Cy Young voting twice. He was an All-Star this season. At his best, he’s among the sport’s 10 best pitchers. He’s not among the top five. His Baseball-Reference WAR for 2024 ranked 21st among MLB pitchers, third-best among Braves pitchers.
He made $15M in 2024. This is his first and best shot at a set-for-life contract. He’ll want at least five years. He’ll want at least nine figures, not counting those on the far side of the decimal point.
Aaron Nola is a fair comparison. He became a free agent at 30. He’d never won a Cy Young, but he’d finished in the top five twice. He re-upped with the Phillies last winter – the Braves made a pitch – for $172M over seven seasons, an annual average value of $24.8M. If you’re Fried, that’s your baseline.
The Braves have no contract on their books – not Sale’s, not Matt Olson’s, not Austin Riley’s, not Ronald Acuna’s, not Spencer Strider’s – that will pay anyone $25M in any season. That will change at some point. (In baseball salaries as in car insurance, prices never go down.) It’s unlikely Fried will be the agent of such change.
In the post-Maddux era of free agency, the Braves haven’t spent windfall money on a starting pitcher in his prime. Denny Neagle, Mike Hampton, Russ Ortiz and Tim Hudson came via trade. In January 2009, Frank Wren signed Derek Lowe for $60M over four seasons; Lowe was 35 and had made $10M as a Dodger the year before.
In June 2019, Alex Anthopoulos signed Dallas Keuchel for four months at $13M. In November 2020, the 37-year-old Charlie Morton signed for one season at $15M; he would stick around three more years, topping out at $20M. In Anthopoulos’ seven years here, there’s no pitching precedent for Fried.
Anthopoulos’ major free-agent decisions have involved Josh Donaldson, Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson. Anthopoulos wanted to keep all three; he wound up keeping none. The belief in baseball is that position players project better than pitchers, who toil at the mercy of arm ligaments. Jacob deGrom signed with Texas for $37M per annum in December 2023; he has worked 41 innings over two years.
The point being: If Anthopoulos wasn’t willing to meet price for stellar position players, he isn’t apt to do it for a pitcher. Someone will give Fried close to what he wants. That someone doesn’t work in The Battery.
I wish it were otherwise. Fried won the game that got the Braves going in Milwaukee and the one in Houston that made them champions, and the 2021 postseason is among the fondest memories of my working life. But I like to think that, over 40-plus years of this, I know how things work. If I said I saw Fried working here in 2025, I’d be lying.
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