As Aaron Boone logged onto a Zoom name between the Yankees and Max Fried this previous December, he puzzled whether or not the pitcher made sense for the Bronx’s shiny lights.
“For whatever reason, I went in thinking, ‘Oh, he’s maybe going to be more reserved. I don’t know that he wants to come play in New York,’ those kinds of things,” Boone recalled early this spring. “And when we got off that call, I went, ‘Wow, that was great.’
“It was easy conversation. I feel like he connected with however many of us were on that call.”
It helped that Fried truly had a preexisting relationship with one member of the Bombers’ brass: particular advisor Omar Minaya.
Minaya served because the Padres’ senior vice chairman of baseball operations once they used the seventh total decide within the 2012 draft on Fried. Minaya personally scouted an 18-year-old Fried at Los Angeles’ Harvard-Westlake Faculty, and he bought to know the pitcher all through the pre-draft course of.
Whereas San Diego traded Fried to Atlanta two years later and Minaya ultimately returned to the Mets, the 2 stayed in contact. Now Fried is about to make his pinstriped debut in opposition to the Brewers on Saturday.
The acquainted face made it simpler for Fried to open up on a 90-minute name.
“It was a pleasant surprise,” mentioned Fried, who additionally obtained profitable provides from the Purple Sox and Rangers. “It’s pretty cool to have someone that knew me from the beginning.
“It allowed me to be a little bit more comfortable on the call.”
In response to Cashman, Minaya knew Fried and his household “intimately.” Minaya specified that he’s notably shut with just a few New York-based members of Fried’s fam from his mom’s facet.
Cashman added that Minaya talked about the overlap in San Diego through the video convention. Minaya, a former common supervisor, additionally instructed Fried how happy he was with the pitcher’s development and success.
“Knowing him as a kid and what he was and how he developed and how he communicated when we had that call, he just communicated so intelligently,” Minaya mentioned. “He’s so intelligent about pitching and passionate and understanding. So I was just very proud of him.”
Minaya remembered the primary time he noticed Fried in-person at Harvard-Westlake. The southpaw struggled that day, however Minaya left the sport impressed with the best way Fried competed via adversity.
Minaya walked away satisfied that the Padres ought to take Fried if he fell to them. These emotions solely intensified as Minaya turned higher acquainted with the “classic left-hander.”
“As an evaluator, he was easy to like,” Minaya mentioned. “He was a profile of what you look for in a young high school pitcher. The delivery was clean. Arm action was good. Good athlete, competitor. His velocity was average, but the secondary pitches [stood out]. He had what we call a traditional, old-school curveball. He threw it, and you could see that he was going to have that pitch for the rest of his life because it was natural to him.”
With these emotions lingering all these years later, Minaya was glad to see Fried “high on the list of Plan B” choices within the occasion the Yankees misplaced Juan Soto’s free agent sweepstakes.
That’s precisely what occurred, because the Yanks and Fried agreed to the biggest assure ever for a left-hander two days after Soto and the Mets got here to phrases on a record-setting 15-year, $765 million deal. Coincidentally, Minaya performed a big half within the Yankees’ acquisition of Soto two winters in the past, as his friendship with Padres common supervisor A.J. Preller helped facilitate that blockbuster.
Fried’s contract made him the face of a post-Soto pivot that additionally noticed the Yankees purchase Devin Williams, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt. Now Fried is the Yankees’ de facto ace with Gerrit Cole sidelined by Tommy John surgical procedure.
Cole’s season-ending harm bummed Minaya, as he assumed the Cy Younger winner and Fried would “fit like a glove” resulting from their savant-like minds for pitching.
That prediction appeared spot-on within the early days of camp, as Cole mentioned he and Fried “speak the same language.”
Whereas Carlos Rodón took Cole’s Opening Day begin to hold others’ schedules intact, there’s no arguing that Fried is the brand new No. 1 of this injury-ravaged employees because the Yankees strive for a return to the World Sequence and their first championship since 2009.
It’s a considerably unfamiliar place for Fried. As proficient as he’s — no pitcher with at the least 500 innings has a greater ERA since 2020 — he not often needed to be the undisputed chief of Braves rotations that included Chris Sale, Spencer Strider and Charlie Morton.
Fried can be admittedly shy and on the “reserved side,” simply as Boone suspected. However he additionally considers himself curious and inquisitive.
Minaya noticed these tendencies in a teenage Fried years in the past, and the Yankees observed them instantly on that fateful Zoom name. They remained seen as Fried navigated his first spring coaching together with his new group, as he picked the brains of Cole, Matt Blake and visitor instructors akin to Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Ron Guidry and CC Sabathia.
“He’s been a sponge,” Boone mentioned.
Count on that to proceed with the Yankees now extra depending on Fried than once they signed him.
“He’s reserved, but an observant reserved,” Minaya mentioned. “He’s one of those guys that’s always learning.”
Initially Revealed: March 28, 2025 at 8:00 AM EDT
