Because you can never have too many (healthy) starters, and he might bring even more bang for the buck than Corbin Burnes.
For the rest of 2024, Camden Chat staff will be profiling assorted free agents, trade targets, and other potential offseason moves that could address needs for next year’s roster.
It was a tale of two halves for the Orioles this season. There was the disappearing act of Adley Rutschman’s offense, the non-impact of trade deadline acquisitions like Eloy Jiménez, Austin Slater, and Cristian Pache (him?), and lots of struggles with RISP up and down the lineup.
But above all, there were pitching injuries. At one point in August, the O’s were down eight pitchers, including five starters. A competent 3.70 first-half ERA swelled to 4.30 in the second. The bullpen stumbled, with a 4.81 second-half ERA, but really, it’s the fact that for stretches, the Orioles had to tape a rotation together with guys like Albert Suárez, Trevor Rogers (!), Cade Povich and Cole Irvin that reminds us: you can never have too much starting pitching.
Which is where a slim, 30-year-old lefty starter named Max Fried comes in. Fried isn’t as flashy some of the other free-agent starters out there (cough, cough, the Orioles could also just re-sign Corbin Burnes), but as MLB recently pointed out, the two are pitching at a similar level.
Here are some basics on Fried. Drafted in the first round in 2012 out of Harvard-Westlake High, Fried arrived on the scene in 2019, going 17-6 with a 4.02 ERA in 30 starts for the Atlanta Braves, which includes a 7-0 stretch between July and September with a 3.02 ERA. In the pandemic-shortened 2020, he went 7-0 with a 2.25 ERA and earned himself a Gold Glove. In his first full season, 2021, he finished 14-7 with a 3.04 ERA, including a 2.44 ERA after May 5, third-best in the Majors. The next season, he set a career high in innings and finished second in the Cy Young voting. An All-Star in 2024, he posted a 3.25 ERA in 29 starts, which included two complete games, one a shutout.
That’s a lot of consistent pitching excellence. Over the five seasons from 2019-24, no pitcher had more wins (60). He’s also been durable: other than the pandemic-shortened 2020, and 2023, when he missed time with what a left forearm strain, he’s thrown 165+ innings each season. The lefty is also great at holding runners, his 14.5 percent of caught stealings on career pickoff attempts dramatically higher than the MLB average (1.7 percent). That’s much better than Corbin Burnes, for what it’s worth.
In other ways, Fried is closer to the 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner than one might think. According to a recent MLB profile that put the more-hyped Burnes and Fried side by side, the results have been quite similar. Start with runs allowed. Burnes, who broke out during the shortened 2020 season, has yielded just 261 earned runs in 816 2/3 innings, good for a 2.88 ERA (142 ERA+). Impressively, Fried has been even better at limiting scoring, with 205 earned runs and a 2.81 ERA with a 151 ERA+ since 2020—both MLB best, counting even Burnes.
There was a time when Burnes was clearly the better pitcher: that would be 2020-21, when he led MLB with a 1.74 FIP, during which time Fried had a 3.26 FIP. But that was due to Burnes’ prolific strikeout rates in that stretch, including an unreal 36.7% in 2020. Since then, the right-hander’s strikeouts have dropped, while Fried’s totals, albeit never super high, have stayed consistent, even increased slightly.
Here, courtesy of MLB.com, is a graph that tells that story:
https://www.mlb.com/news/max-fried-free-agency-comparison-to-corbin-burnes
It’s not that Burnes has lost effectiveness—you saw that in his stunningly consistent 2.92 ERA over 32 starts for Baltimore this season. It’s just that, with a strikeout rate now in the 23% range, he is more dependent on his defense than he used to be. For the record, 23.8% is Fried’s career strikeout rate—not great, but again, similar to what Burnes is doing these days. For that matter, over the past three years, Burnes’ FIP is 3.49, while Fried’s is 3.03.
The two aces also boast striking similar numbers in terms of quality of contact—that’s to say, batters don’t hit either pitcher hard. Take average exit velocity. Since 2020, Fried’s is an MLB-second best 86.1 mph, with Burnes right behind him at 86.7 mph. Or barrel rate, referring to batted balls that have an ideal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. Fried is a groundball machine, and for this reason, he also has the lowest barrel rate of any starter in that stretch (4.7%, with Burnes third, at 5.4%).
Spotrac projects Fried to sign a six-year, $136 million deal in free agency. He’s not a Scott Boras client, so he’s expected to sign relatively quickly—something to keep in mind if the Orioles are trying to stay in multiple conversations. But yes, while Burnes may be the consensus No. 1 starter on the market, Fried is neck-in-neck with him while casting a slightly lower profile. Could be a good fit.
Granted, Fried has been linked to teams ranging from his own Atlanta to San Diego, the Chicago Cubs (huh), and the entire AL East… so this isn’t so much a prediction as the greedy wild-eyed rantings of a fan. But hey, after renting an ace for one year, the next thing the Orioles could would be to actually sign one. I’d like to see them swing a multi-year deal for Fried.