Braves 2021 Player Previews: Max Fried Headlines the Braves Rotation

Max Fried had a career year in 2020. Can he carry over his stellar performance into the new season in 2021?

Freddie Freeman may have won the NL MVP award in 2020, but a strong case can be made that Max Fried was the Atlanta Braves MVP. He held together a starting rotation that was a disaster, and that is putting it kindly.

Guys like Tommy Milone and Robby Erlin were given shots due to injuries and opt-outs. Bryse Wilson, Kyle Wright, and Touki Toussaint struggled through growing pains. Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb both struggled mightily.

However, every five days, Max Fried put the pitching staff on his back and gave the Braves a shot to win.

Max Fried was the unquestioned Ace of the Braves staff.

Was 2020 a sign of things to come for the young left-hander or was there some smoke and mirrors involved? Let us begin by taking a look at Fried’s 2020 stats.

Over the course of 11 starts and 56.0 IP, Max Fried pitched to a line of 7-0 and a 2.25 ERA. That is excellent.

Looking further, he had a K/9 of 8.04 and a BB/9 of 3.05. These numbers were actually worse than his 2019 numbers where he posted a K/9 of 9.40 and a BB/9 of 3.05.

This may play into why Fried’s FIP (3.10) and xFIP (4.05) were both higher than his ERA, suggesting that Fried was a little lucky at times throughout 2020. Now, a 3.10 FIP is nothing to be concerned about, a 3.10 FIP is actually really good, it does suggest that Fried is due some regression. The xFIP is slightly more concerning as it falls in the “slightly below average” range in terms of xFIP.

While the xFIP does bring some concern for Fried going forward into 2021, almost every other advanced metric loved Max Fried. Take a look at his Baseball Savant page.

Here is how Max Fried ranked in some of these categories compared to the rest of the league:

• Top 8% in Barrel%- 3.3%
• Top 7% in xSLG- .289
• Top 2% in Exit Velocity- 83.3
• Top 2% in Hard Hit %- 23.8%

The key to Max Fried’s success in 2020 was the weak contact he caused from opposing hitters. While his strikeout numbers dropped, he used his elite defense behind him to get batters out.

Can Max Fried carry this over into 2021 and continue to carry this Braves rotation?