Max Fried

31-Year-Old PitcherSP

New York Yankees

2025 Stats

W-L

19-5

ERA

2.86

WHIP

1.10

189

2026 Projections

W-L

ERA

WHIP

Unlock Our Projections

2026 Fantasy Outlook

Someone forgot to tell Fried that free agents are supposed to struggle in their first season in a new market. Instead, Fried had the best full season of his career, setting career bests in innings pitched, wins, starts and strikeouts. Fried was the ace the Yankees needed with the offseason loss of Gerrit Cole, as Fried won 59 percent of his starts while his 20 quality starts were the third-highest total in the league. Fried tweaked his repertoire to take the cutter from his least-used pitch of 2024 to his favorite pitch in 2025. Fried is now throwing seven different pitch types to both rightes and lefties, making him incredibly tough to predict or square up as his .222 opponents' average and 14 homers on the season attest. The forearm neuritis that gave everyone a scare in 2024 is well in the rearview mirror, but blisters have occasionally popped up with him, which truly is the only risk with this lefty. He does not have the elite velocity of other aces, but few execute their craft as well as Fried did in 2025. Read Past Outlooks

RANKS

Rest of Season