When Max Fried signed an eight-year, $218 million contract during the 2024-2025 offseason, the scouting report said that the Yankees were getting one of the game’s premier southpaws with impeccable defense, but who had regularly battled injuries throughout his career. Now at the contract’s quarter pole, that scouting report has played out as advertised. Across his first two years in pinstripes, Fried’s 8.3 fWAR and 2.83 ERA rank eighth and fifth, respectively, among starters with at least 300 innings
pitched, and he took home the 2025 AL Gold Glove. After a mostly healthy 2025 that saw him throw a career-high 195 innings, however, the 32-year-old battled injuries this season, culminating in an offseason elbow surgery announced earlier this week.
Grade: A-
2026 Stats: 20 starts, 112.2 IP, 2.80 ERA (150 ERA+), 2.65 FIP, 3.59 xFIP, 24.0 K%, 7.6 BB%, 3.5 fWAR, 3.7 rWAR
2027 Contract Status: Entering third year of eight-year, $218 million contract
With Ace of the Past Gerrit Cole still rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and Ace of the Future Cam Schlittler about to explode on the scene, Fried was tabbed as the Yankees’ Opening Day starter in San Francisco — his fourth career Opening Day start, and first in pinstripes. He was characteristically dominant in that first start, allowing just two runs in 6.1 scoreless frames to set the tone not just for his 2026 performance, but that of the Yankees’ rotation as a whole.
When healthy this season, Fried was the definition of consistency. Across his 20 regular season starts, he allowed more than three runs just three times. One came against the LA Angels on April 16th, during that strange four-game set in the Bronx where the Yankees’ pitching staff randomly crumbled to pieces (they gave up 32 total runs against the American League’s second-worst offense). The second came on May 8th, where the future World Series champion Milwaukee Brewers put together a four-run second inning courtesy of four singles and a pair of walks; since he would hit the injured list with an elbow bruise following his next start, it’s fair to wonder whether he was beginning to feel the effects of the injury here. The third, and final, came in the final week of the season, as the Rays offense broke through in the seventh as he was outdueled by Tampa Bay ace Drew Rasmussen. Even in these three starts, however, Fried managed to give the Yankees length, going 5.1, 6, and 6.1 innings in each, respectively.
In his other 17 outings, Fried was magnificent. He surrendered one run or fewer in 12 of those outings, and struck out six or more nine times. More importantly, he continued to be elite at generating soft contact, ranking in the 99th percentile in barrel percentage, 97th percentile in hard hit percentage, 96th percentile in average exit velocity, and 83rd percentile in ground ball percentage.
Furthermore, when the lights shone brightest, Fried came up big. Taking the ball against Boston in Game 2 of the Wild Card Round, he spun six innings of one-run ball, striking out six and walking just one; the only blemish came on a Willson Contreras home run with two outs in the sixth, a wall-scraper that was Boston’s first postseason run since the sixth inning of Game 2 of the previous year’s Wild Card Round. He wasn’t quite as strong a week later, getting tagged with the loss as the Yankees got swept, but honestly, he pitched well enough to keep the Yankees in the ballgame: in truth, he really only made two bad pitches all night, although both unfortunately ended up in the seats.
As we look ahead to next season, there is a concern on the horizon: Fried’s injury history. As we know, elbows are a ticking time bomb for pitchers, even those like Fried who rely less on swing-and-miss stuff and more on soft contact. Even though Fried is on track to be a full go for the hypothetical spring training that starts on time, and will almost certainly be ready for whenever the teams actually report, we’re still going to want to keep an eye on his elbow going forward. That’s true for all pitchers, though, and at least with Fried, we know that, when he’s on the mound, he’s going to be an ace.
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