Max Fried

At the end of the year, Fried was ranked the 43rd-best prospect in the minors by MLBPipeline.

He was also named an MiLB.com Padres Organization All Star, and Baseball America ranked his Curveball as the best in the Padres' minor league system.

Max Dorian Fried (born January 18, 1994) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball (MLB).

Fried pitched for the 2009 Maccabiah Games Team USA Juniors baseball team that won a gold medal in Israel.

Fried first attended Montclair College Preparatory School, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, where he played baseball, football, and basketball.

As a sophomore, with Ethan Katz as his pitching coach, he was 10–3 with a 1.81 earned run average (ERA), and was named the Olympic League MVP and to the All-California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division V first team.

In his junior year Fried was 7–3 with a 1.31 ERA, with 100 strikeouts in 69 innings, as he also played outfield and batted .360 with four home runs and 30 RBIs.

He was named the 2011 Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Male High School Athlete of the Year.

After Montclair Prep cut its baseball team subsequent to his junior year, Fried then transferred to Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, where he wore uniform number 32 in honor of Sandy Koufax and played with fellow future MLB pitchers Lucas Giolito and Jack Flaherty.

Drafted in 2012 by the San Diego Padres in the first round, seventh overall, Fried made his major league debut in 2017.

In 2012, his senior year, Fried was 8–2 with a 2.02 ERA, and 105 strikeouts in 66 innings.

He was a 2012 Rawlings-Perfect Game 1st Team All-American.

The San Diego Padres selected Fried in the first round with the seventh overall selection of the 2012 Major League Baseball draft.

Fried chose to sign with the Padres for $3 million despite his commitment to the UCLA Bruins baseball team.

Baseball America rated him the top left-hander available in the draft.

Fried made his professional debut for the Arizona League Padres in 2012 and spent the whole season there, going 0–1 with a 3.57 ERA in 17.2 innings pitched.

He played for the Fort Wayne TinCaps in 2013 where he compiled a 6–7 record and 3.49 ERA in 23 starts.

In 2014, he was ranked the Padres' top pitching prospect, and their No. 2 prospect overall, by MLB.com.

Fried was injured for much of the year and did not make his season debut until July.

The next month, on August 20, Fried underwent Tommy John surgery; he missed the remainder of the 2014 season.

On December 19, 2014, the Padres traded Fried, Jace Peterson, Dustin Peterson, and Mallex Smith to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Justin Upton and Aaron Northcraft.

Fried missed the entire 2015 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

He returned to action on April 9, 2016, for the Rome Braves.

Fried spent all of 2016 with Rome, pitching to an 8–7 record and 3.93 ERA in 21 games (20 starts), striking out 112 batters in 103.0 innings.

Fried ended the season ranked by Baseball America as the 6th-best prospect in the South Atlantic League.

His fastball, clocked at 93–94 mph, reached 96–97 mph in the second half of the season.

The Braves added Fried to their 40-man roster after the season.

Fried was invited to spring training for the first time at the start of the 2017 season.

He began the season at the Class AA level with the Mississippi Braves.

He was ranked as the Braves' No. 8 prospect overall by MLB.com in May, and the #89 prospect in minor league baseball in July.

His 17 wins in 2019 were 2nd-most in the National League, and his seven wins in 2020 were again 2nd-most in the NL.

Fried pitched 6 shut-out innings in the final game of the 2021 World Series against the Houston Astros, helping lead the Braves to their first World Series title in 26 years.

Through 2023, Fried had the best career win–loss percentage of all Braves pitchers, at .705.

In 2020, Fried won the NL Gold Glove Award at pitcher and the Fielding Bible Award at pitcher.

In 2021, he won the Gold Glove Award again, as well as the Silver Slugger Award for pitchers, becoming the third pitcher in MLB history to win both awards in the same year.

He was also named to the All-MLB Team those two years.

In 2022 he was named an All Star, and won his third consecutive Gold Glove Award at pitcher.

Fried was born and grew up in Santa Monica, California, the middle son of Carrie and Jonathan Fried, and is Jewish.

His younger brother Jake, also a pitcher, attended the University of Arizona.

Max began attending the Reggie Smith Baseball Academy in Encino, California, at the age of seven, and learned how to throw a Curveball from the retired outfielder.