TAMPA, Fla. — Max Fried threw 195.1 innings last season. He won 19 games. He finished fourth in the AL Cy Young vote and earned his third All-Star nod. By almost every measure, his first year in pinstripes was a roaring success.
But one game erased the shine. One start in October stained everything that came before it. And four months later, the Yankees left-hander still has not shaken the memory.
On Thursday, at the first official pitchers and catchers workout at Steinbrenner Field, Fried spoke publicly about what that game has done to him since. What he said should put the rest of the American League on notice.
A brilliant regular season with one ugly scar
The Yankees signed Fried to an eight-year, $218 million deal last February. It was the largest contract ever given to a left-handed pitcher. With Gerrit Cole lost for the entire 2025 season after Tommy John surgery, Fried had to carry the rotation immediately.
He delivered. His 19 wins led all of Major League Baseball. His 2.86 ERA across 32 starts put him among the elite arms in the game. He struck out 189 batters and posted a 1.10 WHIP. Those 19 wins tied CC Sabathia in 2011 and Luis Severino in 2018 for the most by a Yankee in the past 15 years.
He went 6-0 with a 1.55 ERA over his final seven regular-season starts. He blanked the Red Sox for 6.1 innings in his first postseason outing in pinstripes. Everything pointed toward a deep October run.
Then came Game 2 of the ALDS at Rogers Centre.
The Blue Jays already had the series lead after a 10-1 rout in the opener. Fried needed to steady the ship. He did the opposite. Toronto tagged him for seven runs on eight hits and two walks. He lasted just three innings. The Blue Jays cruised to a 13-7 win and took a 2-0 stranglehold on the series.
The Yankees clawed back to win Game 3 behind Aaron Judge’s heroic comeback rally from a five-run deficit. But they fell 5-2 in Game 4 at Yankee Stadium. The season was over. Fried never got a chance to atone.
Fried turns the pain into a pointed promise
Speaking at Steinbrenner Field on Thursday, Fried did not hide from that disastrous night in Toronto. He leaned into it.
“Felt like it was a good year, but at the end, I didn’t have the start that I needed to make,” Fried said. “So definitely left a bad taste in my mouth and motivated me for the offseason.”
He went further. Fried admitted that the memory of that game has followed him through every workout, every throwing session and every quiet moment where baseball crept into his thoughts.
“You try to move on from it. You don’t want to ruin your everyday life from it,” Fried said. “But every time I get in the gym or I pick up a ball or anything that has to do with baseball, it’s definitely a motivating factor. You want to always keep getting better, learn from your mistakes and make sure you’re not making the same mistakes over again. So just trying to remember that feeling and using that as motivation to constantly get better every year.”
That is not the language of a pitcher trying to bury a bad start. That is a man who has weaponized his worst moment.
No changes to the offseason routine despite career-high workload
There was reason for concern about Fried’s durability entering 2026. He threw 195.1 innings during the regular season and another 9.1 in the postseason. It was the heaviest workload of his career.
But Fried said Thursday that the workload did not change how he prepared this winter. He faced hitters on Tuesday at the player development complex and felt strong.
“I felt great at the end of the year,” Fried said. “The last start I made, I was throwing just as hard as I had all year. I was really looking forward to potentially making another start. It wasn’t like I was hanging going into the offseason or anything like that. I felt as good as I did all year.”
That is encouraging news for the Yankees. With Cole still working his way back from elbow reconstruction and Clarke Schmidt also recovering from internal brace surgery, Fried and Carlos Rodon will once again carry the top of the rotation when the season begins.
Fried believes this Yankees roster can compete with anyone
The Yankees were outscored 23-8 in the first two ALDS games in Toronto. They were beaten convincingly by a Blue Jays team that eventually went on to face the Dodgers in the World Series. The sting was real.
But Fried was clear about where things stand heading into 2026.
“I personally think that our group is good enough talent-wise to compete with anyone in the game,” Fried said. “Obviously, didn’t have the series that we wanted to and a big part of that was we weren’t able to pitch as well as we wanted and keep us in games.”
He also said the conversations among teammates this winter and in early camp have been direct.
“Definitely didn’t end the way we wanted,” Fried told reporters. “Just talking with a lot of the guys throughout the offseason, and especially in camp so far, it definitely didn’t leave a good taste in our mouths. We’re motivated. We want to be able to clean up a lot of the mistakes that we made last year and try to learn from it, be able to get better, and hopefully get to where we want to go, which is to a World Series and win one.”
The Yankees have not won the World Series since 2009. That drought has defined the franchise’s recent era despite consistent regular-season success. For Fried, who already owns a ring from the 2021 World Series with the Atlanta Braves, the mission is simple. He knows what it takes. He knows what he has to fix.
The first Grapefruit League game is Feb. 20. Fried’s second chapter in pinstripes starts there. And he is carrying something heavier than a baseball into spring training.
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