2026 : Around the League

Fried was a walking TJS candidate in 2023 and 2024. He missed a total of about 25 starts between those two seasons with forearm strains. But, sure, hindsight and revisionist history says AA is a fool for not giving him a 10 year deal.

And this saying nothing of his postseason history.
every pitcher is a ticking time bomb.. and Kershaw sucked in the playoffs until he didn't.. Ian Anderson was playoff god.. I don't really buy into playoff record crap since it is short sample noise. The fact was people thought he was overpaid because they are not used to the Braves handing out fair market value for anyone. Sure it is a risk.. just like any contract a team signs.. but either go get elite talent and thrive when you have them in their prime.. or let them walk and build around your core with a bunch of waiver wire garbage.
 
every pitcher is a ticking time bomb.. and Kershaw sucked in the playoffs until he didn't.. Ian Anderson was playoff god.. I don't really buy into playoff record crap since it is short sample noise. The fact was people thought he was overpaid because they are not used to the Braves handing out fair market value for anyone. Sure it is a risk.. just like any contract a team signs.. but either go get elite talent and thrive when you have them in their prime.. or let them walk and build around your core with a bunch of waiver wire garbage.
It’s revisionist history. No one wanted to give him the contract the Yankees gave him for these exact reasons. Now everyone wants to point out what a bad move it was to not. Whether you think those reasons were valid now is irrelevant to my point.
 
Also, every other pitcher hadn’t had two straight years of missing significant time due to forearm injuries. So retorting with “WELL EVERY PITCHER IS A TICKING TIME BOMB” is ignorant at best and disingenuous at worst.
 
When you look at the three departures that tore the heart out of what should have been a dynasty, Max is going to be the one we miss most. As we wait to see if Acuna is finally the player we decide is worth fair market value or we continue to disrespect our stars.
 
I get what you're saying. But the 20/20 hindsight on Fried here is fun. For starters, we were not coming close to matching what the Yankees gave him (nor would most any other team), and there was no indication he would have taken a discount. Apart from that, there are/were real concerns about his durability and lack of playoff success (we saw this come to play against the Blue Jays last year).

It will be tough to really evaluate how this worked out until the end of the contract. There was no reason to think he wouldn't continue to be dominant in at least the first few years.
If I’m remembering right Fried missed 3 months with us in his walk year with a forearm strain. He held up fine for the Yankees last year but it’s totally possible that with Snit and Kranitz at the controls he’d have injured himself badly last year and would currently be out.
 
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