At almost every defensive position in the Major League, the Atlanta Braves and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos have assembled a squad full of players with long-term contractural control.
With several pending free agents leaving the starting rotation after this season, things aren’t looking so good for the pitching staff.
A national writer for The Athletic named Tim Britton attempted to estimate the price the Braves would have to pay to preemptively extend the contract of southpaw pitcher Max Fried before the season finished.
And this isn’t just conjecture either; in order to determine what a player may get from their organization when signing a pre-free agency agreement, Britton examined 900 free-agent and extension contracts and cross-referenced them with statistical output before to and during platform years.
Despite last year’s injuries, Britton found that, of the players who were closest to Fried’s pre-free agency performance, they were 2013’s Cole Hamels and 2016’s Zack Greinke. His analysis is available to The Athletic subscribers.
(As we previously stated, Fried’s 2023 season was an exception in terms of his health; the left-hander usually saw brief stints in the minor leagues but yet recorded 28 or more starts and roughly 165 to 185 innings per season.)
