Braves Land CY Young King: 3-Time Winner to Replace Max Fried in Atlanta
It hasn’t been a very active offseason for the Atlanta Braves so far, but maybe that’s by design.
The Braves were awfully casual about letting two-time All-Star starting pitcher Max Fried leave in free agency. They were likely never going to match the $218 million bid from the New York Yankees, but they seemed resigned to the fate Fried would leave long before then.
Without Fried, the Braves’ rotation is still talented, but it’s missing a number-five starter. Adding one more solid arm behind Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Spencer Strider, and Spencer Schwellenbach could make Atlanta one of baseball’s most dominant pitching staffs.
After succeeding with keeping Sale healthy and winning him his first career Cy Young Award in 2024, what if the Braves looked to a former three-time winner of the award as their next reclamation project?
“Scherzer finally started to show his age in a campaign riddled with injuries that featured his lowest strikeout rate (22.6%) since 2011 in the nine games he did manage to toe the rubber,” the authors wrote.
“If he can regain good health, however, you can bet most hitters still wouldn’t relish facing down Mad Max.”
Scherzer struggled through back, shoulder, and hamstring injuries in 2024, none of which are encouraging signs for a team hoping to get a full season out of the legendary righty. But the Braves have enough depth at Triple-A that they could skip a start for Scherzer every so often to prolong his longevity.
If any team is going to extract one last dominant season out of Scherzer, it may well be the Braves. And after all his years of success in the National League East, none of Atlanta’s division rivals would be excited to see him coming.
