Max Fried has established himself as the Braves ace, and with a 45-15 record, a 3.05 ERA, 456 strikeouts to only 120 walks, two gold gloves, and a silver slugger over the last four seasons, Fried has also established himself as one of the better pitchers in all of Major League Baseball as well.
Starting pitchers of Max Fried’s caliber are a commodity teams are always willing to spend big money on, and while the Braves still have two more years of control on Max Fried after the 2022 season ends, Jon Chuckery explained on his show Friday night that it might be in the Braves best interest to get an extension done with Fried sooner rather than later.
Jon believes that signing Max Fried sooner rather than later would be more cost efficient for the Braves saying “Guys like Max Fried command massive dollars in the open market, and while you have two more years of control for Fried, I wonder if it wouldn’t make sense now to get him locked up and get this thing done.”
Jon makes a very good point when he says this because just from what Max Fried has already done in his career he will already draw a lot of interest and millions if he hits the open market today, and if he has another great season this year, like he’s expected to, then the price will just continue to go up, and the same goes for the following two seasons until he hits free agency.
Jon shares this same sentiment saying “He’s got six and a half million that he made this year. Let's say he’s a fifteen, sixteen game winner with a sub three ERA and 150 strikeouts, that number is going up over ten million dollars.”
Now, if you’re wondering what kind of money a player like Max Fried will cost for the Braves to keep, Jon says “Max Fried is absolutely a seventeen to twenty million dollar pitcher in today’s baseball world.” Now, another thing to think about is the Braves will have to sign Dansby Swanson to a contract extension at the end of this season if they want to keep him, and Dansby won’t be cheap either.
If it was up to Jon to decide if the Braves could only keep Max or Dansby and not both, Jon says “I’ll tell you right now if I had to pick between Max Fried and Dansby, I’d pick Max Fried. It’s hard to find a frontline top of the rotation starter, and when you’ve developed that guy through your system you don’t want him to go cash in and go help another team win a championship. You want that guy to be here to help you win another championship.”
When it comes to possibly having to choose between Max Fried and Dansby Swanson Jon also says “I wonder if some of the money that you’re gonna need to re-sign Dansby Swanson isn’t better allocated for Max Fried, because he’s a young pitcher that is going to command a big market.”
However, Jon doesn’t think the Braves will let Max Fried make it to free agency saying “They probably wait another year. I’d think you’d be a fool to let Max Fried get all the way to a contract year, and then try to re-sign him like that, and I’d you’d be a fool to let Max Fried walk away.” Jon also says “You have a known commodity at this point in Max Fried. Max Fried going into next year again will be your Opening Day starter, and the following year after that he’ll be your Opening Day starter.”
If the Braves go against Chuckery’s advice and do let Max hit free agency, Fried will be thirty years old by the time he hits free agency, and even though that will be the start of the back half of Fried’s prime, Jon doesn’t think that will stop a team from offering a pitcher like Max Fried big money saying “You have a thirty year old ace pitcher and somebody feels like that they are a quality starter away from winning the World Series, they’re going to pay big money for that.”
There is no doubt Max is setting himself up for a big pay day, and Jon already believes Fried is the cream of the crop when it comes to starting pitchers saying “Fried is as good a pitcher as there is, especially the second half of last year, he was as good as any pitcher in baseball including the Jacob deGrom’s and the Max Scherzer’s of the world.”
Also, as the Braves continue to win and continue to get national attention other teams around the league will continue to see that Max Fried is as good a pitcher as there is as well, so the Atlanta Braves should bite the bullet now, before Max keeps taking the mound and raising his price.
