How an overlooked free-agent ace stacks up with Burnes

Max Fried may not be as decorated or as flashy as some of the other elite starters on the free-agent market this year, but the longtime Atlanta Braves hurler belongs in that group all the same, alongside former Cy Young Award winners Corbin Burnes and Blake Snell and (eventually) 23-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki.

Fried might even be closer to Burnes, who is widely regarded as the best available MLB starter, than you think.

There's no denying Burnes has reached a higher career apex than Fried, winning the National League Cy Young Award in 2021 and reaching the 200-strikeout plateau three times. Fried's career high in K's is 173. Burnes has also proven to be more durable, throwing 816 2/3 innings to Fried's 659 since the beginning of 2020.

That said, the two have been strikingly similar in performance over the past five years. Here's how the 30-year-old lefty stacks up with Burnes in some key areas.

Run prevention

First and foremost, a pitcher's job is to keep runs off the scoreboard. Burnes has done his job better than most, yielding just 288 runs (261 earned) in 816 2/3 innings dating back to his breakout season during the shortened 2020 campaign. He has recorded a 2.88 ERA (142 ERA+) in that time.

But Fried, who also arrived as a top-level starter in 2020 and hasn’t looked back, has been better than Burnes in this respect.

In fact, Fried has been better than everyone with at least 500 innings since 2020, recording an MLB-leading 2.81 ERA with a 151 ERA+ -- 51 percent better than the average pitcher in that span.

Highest ERA+ since 2020
Min. 500 innings pitched

1. Max Fried 151
2-T. Corbin Burnes: 142
2-T. Zack Wheeler: 142
4. Shane Bieber: 141
5. Sandy Alcantara: 138

Of course, ERA doesn’t tell the whole story about a pitcher’s performance because it can be skewed by a variety of factors outside the pitcher’s control.

But Fried also compares well to Burnes in FIP, or fielding independent pitching, a metric that only takes into account the factors over which a pitcher has the most control -- strikeouts, walks, homers and hit batsmen -- and is presented on the same scale as ERA.

Burnes led MLB with a 1.74 FIP across 2020-21, while Fried had a 3.26 FIP. But in the past three years, Fried has recorded a 3.03 FIP, while Burnes’ FIP has risen to 3.49, in large part because …

Strikeouts and walks

… Burnes' strikeout rate has continued to plummet.

The right-hander was once one of MLB’s top strikeout artists, ranking second among qualifying pitchers with a 33.4% K-rate from 2020-22. However, his strikeout rate was down to 23.1% in 2024, decreasing for the fourth straight year after peaking at 36.7% in 2020.

Fried, meanwhile, has never been a big strikeout guy. He has punched out 23.8% of the batters he’s faced in 151 career starts, with a single-season high of 25.7% during the six years in which he has made at least 10 starts. Solid, but not elite.

Surprisingly, though, Fried has registered a slightly higher K-rate than Burnes in each of the past two seasons, even while posting lower whiff and chase rates than Burnes in both years.

The two pitchers have also notched similar walk rates since 2020 -- 6.3% for Fried and 6.8% for Burnes -- with identical 7.3% marks over the past two seasons.

But the similarities don't end there.

Quality of contact

Perhaps more than anything, Fried’s ability to consistently generate low-quality contact has fueled his run of excellence. His proficiency in this area is two-fold, as Fried doesn’t give up much hard contact or air contact.

Fried has allowed an average exit velocity of 86.1 mph since 2020, the second lowest among starting pitchers with at least 1,000 batted balls.

Lowest avg. exit velocity, as SP, since 2020
Minimum 1,000 batted balls

1. Zack Wheeler: 85.9 mph
2. Max Fried: 86.1 mph
3. Kyle Hendricks: 86.2 mph
4. Wade Miley: 86.3 mph
5. Tyler Anderson: 86.5 mph
6. Julio Urias: 86.6 mph
7. Corbin Burnes: 86.7 mph

By extension, only 32.7% of the batted balls against Fried in that span were classified as hard-hit (95+ mph exit velocity), giving him the fourth-lowest hard-hit rate among that same group of pitchers.

Lowest hard-hit rate, as SP, since 2020
Minimum 1,000 batted balls

1. Julio Urías: 31.1%
2. Tyler Anderson: 31.5%
3. Corbin Burnes: 32.4%
4-T. Max Fried: 32.7%
4-T. Wade Miley: 32.7%

Fried also genarates a ton of ground balls, recording a 55.1% ground-ball rate over the past five years, including a 59.2% mark across 2023-24.

As a result, he has been incredibly effective at minimizing barrels, batted balls that have an optimal combination of exit velocity and launch angle. Barrels are the worst type of contact a pitcher can allow, typically resulting in extra-base hits.

No starter since 2020 (minimum 1,000 batted balls) has been less barrel-friendly than Fried. It's a big reason why he has been so hard to homer against during that time (0.7 HR/9).

Lowest barrel rate, as SP, since 2020
Minimum 1,000 batted balls

1. Max Fried: 4.7%
2. Justin Steele: 4.8%
3. Corbin Burnes: 5.4%
4. Alex Cobb: 5.7%
5-T. Ranger Suárez: 5.9%
5-T. Antonio Senzatela: 5.9%

As you might have noticed, Fried and Burnes have posted nearly identical marks in all three departments -- average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate -- since 2020.

The same holds true when examining their overall performance -- the strikeouts, the walks and the quality of contact allowed. Expected wOBA, a Statcast metric that accounts for all three of these elements, puts both starters among baseball's best over the past five seasons, with little separation between them.

Lowest xwOBA allowed, as SP, since 2020
Minimum 1,500 batters faced

1. Corbin Burnes: .267
2. Zack Wheeler: .270
3. Tyler Glasnow: .271
4. Brandon Woodruff: .274
5-T. Max Fried: .278
5-T. Clayton Kershaw: .278
5-T. Freddy Peralta: .278

It's something to keep in mind as free agency unfolds. Burnes may be the consensus pick as the No. 1 starter on the market, but Fried has been right there with him for a half-decade and could be a difference-making addition in his own right this offseason.