Atlanta Braves: Why Max Fried Will Win the NL Cy Young in 2022

After a bit of a rough start for Max Fried in 2022, he’s now on a path that could lead the Atlanta Braves ace to a Cy Young award in 2022. 

Brian Snitker and the Atlanta Braves decided to delay Max Fried’s next scheduled start to Monday so they could have their ace go up against the division rival New York Mets.

And even though the move may have cost them a series win against the Texas Rangers, it had the desired effect on Monday as Max Fried had another dominant performance in a 5-2 win over the Mets.

That’s not a run of three good starts for Fried after a couple of shaky starts to begin the season — and even those starts it was just a bad two or three innings and some unlucky BABIP.

But in his last three starts, he’s allowed just 3 earned runs on 10 hits and no walks over 19 innings with 18 strikeouts.

He’s certainly found his groove and is now on pace to win the NL Cy Young award.

Braves: Max Fried’s Path to the NL Cy Young

Understanding we’re not even a month into the season and Max Fried isn’t even the best starting pitcher on his team right now, here is why Max Fried will win the NL Cy Young.

He’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball for three years now and is getting even better.

A big reason for that is his pitch mix. So far this season he’s throwing all five of his pitches over 11 percent of the time.

Before 2020 he was primarily throwing the fastball and curveball. Starting in 2020, he really started to add the slider and sinker.

Last year he threw all four of those pitches at least 11 percent of the time. And now he’s throwing the change-up more as well, giving hitters five pitches to contend with.

And it’s not just that he’s throwing more pitches more often, it’s that he’s able to command all five pitches — he’s walked just one batter this season.

With that, he’s getting a ton of groundballs and weak contact because hitters don’t know what’s coming — they can’t sit on any one particular pitch.

He has a groundball rate of 53 percent — on par with where it’s been throughout his career — and he is in the 94th percentile for average exit velocity against at just 84 MPH.

The 28-year-old lefty is also in the 99th percentile for chase rate, getting hitters to swing at a ton of pitches outside the zone.

FanGraphs currently has him with a FIP o 2.45, which ranks 9th among NL starters (Kyle Wright currently ranks second at 1.37).

At the end of last year, a 2.45 FIP would have ranked second only behind NL Cy Young winner Corbin Bunres who had a record-breaking FIP of 1.63.

And again, Fried is only getting better after a slow start. Those ahead of him are likely to regress while he improves.

There are only two things (other than injury) that hold Max Fried back from winning the NL Cy Young — strikeouts and innings pitched.

He’s never going to be a dominant strikeout guy, which a lot of voters and fans love to look at for this particular award. And I’m not sure Brian Snitker is going to allow him to get the innings he’ll need to get the credit he deserves.

We’ve already seen the Braves use a six-man rotation to help limit innings early. The Braves are coming off a postseason run where they played an extra month of baseball. And the Braves have a great bullpen that you can utilize as they did on Monday to lockdown a win and save a starter’s arm.

Still, Fried will be in the NL Cy Young conversation and if he continues to pitch as he has in these last three starts, he’ll be among the finalist.