As the 2024 season winds down, so might Max Fried's tenure with the Atlanta Braves. The 30-year-old All-Star is set to become a free agent after the season and there haven't been any rumors of extension talks since the end of 2023.
Fried has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since emerging in 2019, which might have priced him out of a return with the Braves.
However, while most of Braves country (including myself) have called for Fried's extension, a Washington Nationals lefty could serve as a warning sign for what's to come in the Braves ace's future.
Max Fried's shuddering similarity to Patrick Corbin could be one huge reason for the Braves to move on
It may seem hard to believe now, after four straight seasons of mediocracy (and downright terribleness), but Washington Nationals starter Patrick Corbin was once a very good pitcher.
Going into free agency during the 2018-2019 offseason, the then 29-year-old lefty compiled a 15.5 career fWAR in six seasons with the Diamondbacks. This was despite having a lost year due to Tommy John and an uncharacteristically bad 2016.
The two-time All-Star had a career 22.4% strikeout rate, 6.8% walk rate, 2.7% HR rate, 3.91 ERA, and 3.65 FIP. He was also coming off the best season of his career, finishing the 2018 season with a 3.15 ERA, 5.8 fWAR, and a fifth-place finish.
Recently, in a group chat, YouTuber And That's Baseball pointed out that Corbin's career numbers before free agency were very similar to Max Fried's. Let's take a look at how they compare.
The Braves lefty is a two-time All-Star with a career 23.8% strikeout rate, 6.8% walk rate, 2.2% HR rate, 3.11 ERA, and 3.22 FIP. He has 18.3 career fWAR, despite an injury-riddled 2023 and the 2020 COVID season.
During the 2019 offseason, MLB Trade Rumors projected the lefty as the third-best free agent on the market, behind only Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. Ultimately, the Nationals signed him to a six-year, $140 million contract. In his first season in D.C., the Nationals won the World Series.
This contract has been a disaster for Washington ever since. Since 2020, Corbin has compiled just 4.4 fWAR over 729 innings, has a 5.62 ERA and a 4.94 FIP. He is the third-worst pitcher by fWAR since 2020 among pitchers with over 500 innings while costing the Nationals over $127 million.
Corbin hasn't seen a huge drop in velocity since signing with the Nationals (92.0 MPH average fastball velocity in 2018 versus 91.4 MPH in 2024), but the effectiveness of his pitch arsenal diminished to a near-unplayable level. His slider, which he threw 41% of the time in 2018 was once an elite pitch. In 2024 it is merely an average pitch that is now complemented by a collection of terrible pitches.
Of course, Max Fried is entering free agent with more prior success than Corbin, but he will also be older and more expensive than Corbin was. However, like Corbin, Fried is a contact pitcher who relies on a plus breaking ball to get outs.
While Fried's success with the Braves warrants a huge contract this offseason, the Braves could see what the lasting effects of a bad contract like Corbin's have done for a franchise like the Nationals and move on.