The Braves announced Friday that ace Max Fried has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to a blister on his left index finger. Righty Darius Vines has been recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett to take his spot on the roster.
Fried’s placement on the injured list will cause some brief panic for Braves fans, but the 15-day term will expire before the National League Division Series kicks off. As such, the injury isn’t likely to impact his postseason availability. Mark Bowman of MLB.com tweets that Fried suggested his regular season might be over last night after the blister issue flared back up, but his playoff status isn’t likely to be in jeopardy.
The IL stint will give Fried a couple weeks of rest before he takes the mound again — likely in the first or second game of the Division Series. Atlanta has long since clinched a postseason berth, and as the NL’s top seed, they’ll have a bye for the Wild Card round of play. Their commanding lead in the National League will give them the luxury of skipping a couple starts for Fried and also recalling a fresh arm (Vines) to keep the pitching staff fully stocked.
Fried’s 2023 season has been shortened by a hamstring strain, a forearm strain and now this blister issue. He’ll finish out the year at just 77 2/3 innings, though he’s been characteristically excellent when on the mound. In 14 starts, he’s pitched to a pristine 2.55 ERA with a 25.7% strikeout rate, 5.8% walk rate, 57.7% ground-ball rate and 0.81 HR/9. Dating back to 2020, Fried boasts a 2.66 ERA in 484 2/3 big league innings.
Assuming the blister issue heals as expected, Fried will step into a playoff rotation alongside veteran Charlie Morton and sophomore hurler Spencer Strider — baseball’s strikeout leader. Righty Bryce Elder would be next in line, although he’s at a career-high workload already and has struggled after a brilliant three-month run to begin the season. Since July 9, Elder has pitched to a 5.40 ERA in 68 1/3 frames.
While Fried’s absence won’t impact the Braves’ playoff position, his placement on the IL could still impact the postseason picture as a whole. The Cubs are in a tight race with the Marlins and Reds for the final National League Wild Card spot — the three teams are separated by just a half game — and Chicago would’ve drawn Fried at some point during next week’s penultimate series of the season in Atlanta. Much to the chagrin of Reds and Marlins fans, the Cubs will now dodge that bullet.
Am I the only one that thinks the braves will be eliminated early?
That pitching is not very good. Postseason has showed that pitching wins and way more teams in the mix have dominant staffs and bullpens. I dont see the Braves slugging their way to a championship
Anything can happen so the braves have no guarantees but the idea that pitching wins is just one side of the coin, offense especially power maximizes run creation off stingy pitching.
Teams that out homer their opponents are win 9 out of 10 times in the playoffs, braves have a lot of power
Not doubting that last sentence, but where did you see this?
It was a post on Reddit around this.
Last year teams were 25-2 in the postseason when they out homered their opponent.
So that’s a two sided- good pitching limits damage, good hitting gets runs on the board. NL should be a fun postseason, lots of good offenses not that many good pitching staffs
Not sure how accurate that was. In the WS alone, the team that outhomered their opponent went 2-1 with the other 3 games being equal in HR’s.
In the Phillies/STL WC game, Philly won 6-3 with no HR, with the Cardinals hitting 1.
Mariners won a WC game 10-9 despite being outhomered 2-1.
Not checking all games of course…
The same thing was applicable in 21. Granted we did have the extreme shift until this year. So it will be interesting to see how teams fair this postseason.
si.com/mlb/2022/02/02/death-of-ground-balls#:~:tex….
“Home runs also decided the World Series. Atlanta won the World Series because it out-homered Houston, 11–2. The Braves scored 17 of their 25 runs on home runs.
With a .244 average, the Braves were the worst hitting world championship team since the DH was added in 1973. It didn’t matter. This is how you win in the information age: get the ball in the air”
I agree that the Braves top-3 starters seem vulnerable* and could absolutely flop leading to an early exit. But even if they do flop, this lineup could actually slug its way to a title. And the top-3 Braves starters are all capable of dominating for 6+ innings and handing the game off to a strong Braves bullpen.
*Morton is 39 and his walk rate has ballooned in the 2nd half (13.6%). Strider is a K-machine but he’s had some rough stretches this year and he’s already thrown 45 IP more than last regular season. And Fried is an ace but he’s missed a lot of time this year and will have limited options for competitive pitching before his next start in 2+ weeks.
Which teams have a truly dominant “staff ” aka starting rotation? Every team has holes in their rotation due to injuries.
Brewers look pretty t0ugh.
I think they will. The pitching in general has not been very good. Outside of Fried you don’t really know what you’re gonna get and the bullpen is equally as bad. Then again, the Dodgers & Phillies rotations are just as suspect. Milwaukee probably has the best 1-3 for the playoffs but that offense is not good.
On paper I don’t know what team is better. Braves actually have a much better pitching staff bullpen and starters than they did in 2022 when they won it all.
Any team facing Atlanta is going to be handicapped as they will have had to use their 2 best maybe 3 best pitchers in the first round of the play offs. As a result the Braves won’t draw an ace type pitcher for game 1 and most likely not game 2. That’s a huge advantage for the Braves. Depending on who the Braves use in game 1 either Fried or Strider with the extra days off in that series if the series were to go 5 games the other team is going have to face one of the Braves axes twice.
I Atlanta gets to the World Series this year
They probably will be but it has nothing to do with their pitching. I’m not sure what you’re talking about exactly but they’ve had one of the better staffs this entire year.
They’ll be eliminated early because you can see they’ve clinched and taken their foot off the pedal. They need to take these next 9 games seriously like they’re playoff games or else they’ll be out of rhythm by the time October starts and whoever is coming off their wild card win will be riding the momentum.
Braves are one of the worst about checking out after they clinch their division. It’s why they consistently found themselves being bounced in the NLDS during the 14 year division title run.
I was hoping they’d ignore their big lead this year, but sure enough the second they clinched against Philly they got swept by the Marlins and have looked lackluster ever since.
Like I said, still 9 games to shake off the rust but they better start now. Everyone should be playing; no days off. Take them serious like it’s the playoffs now.
The Braves are the best team in either league IMO, but anyone can lose in the playoffs, and teams like the Phillies and Brewers are sneaky good. Braves should still be the favs though.
You’re correct, the way the Series has been constructed any third place team, or even the Brewers, could win, Way to go Manfart. I’ll no doubt be watching Cheers rereuns.
Is his arm Fried?
Finger maybe
In Seager, No….you’re looking at the TX bullpen again
That’s true. They have like 5 AAA guys who could improve the bp, but Chris Young is not good at baseball.
With how horrendous the Braves rotation is outside top 3, looks like best record in the MLB is gone.
They play the nats-cubs-nats. it’s pretty much locked up even. Braves wont need 4 SP for the NLDS with all of the off days. I’d be surprised if Elder makes the NLDS roster in lieu of another bullpen arm.
Welp we have done it before with even worse pitching look at 2021. We had Dylan Lee and Tucker Davidson start games in the world series. Nobody is going to feel sorry for the Braves all you can do is play better and go to the next man up. I do think the Braves should do something drastic and let AJ Smith-Shawver get some playing time and may even need to call up 2023 1st round pick Hurston Waldrep to pitch some.
Lee has a career ERA of 2.95. Now, Davidson is pretty bad, though
Yea but Lee made his major league debut in the world series and got shelled and Kyle Wright came in and saved the day.
Wright is starting tomorrow vs. WSH, which hopefully will build confidence in a guy that has only looked like a guy kicking rocks in ’23. Hopefully (please baby Jesus) this will get him going.
It’s about getting hot. The Braves bullpen was one of the biggest differences in that playoff run and Will Smith wasn’t impressive closing that whole year. Joc, Rosario and Soler got hot as well in different series in the playoffs. I also wouldn’t mind seeing some of the young arms having a role. As a Braves fan I have a bad feeling this team is going to be like the 98 Braves lol. Half joking Half Not
Both Will lefty Will Smiths have anger issues. The catcher is the only normal one. Lol
End of the season and guys are dropping like flies.
…….and he will be on the NLDS roster ready to start game 1 or 2.
Oh good now Braves fans can make excuses again if Braves lose in first round
That would be pretty impressive given their first round bye
Haha yess! Go Dodgers!
Yeah, the Dodgers certainly were going the last 2 years, Going home without a championship.
Why are you cheering someone getting injured? That would be like me cheering Mookie getting hurt.
Injuries happen, it’s nice to see them happen at the right time to an effective player like Fried. At least fried tried ^_^
Nah, I’d rather play a team at full strength regardless of the outcome. It earns the victory or loss without doubt. No loopholes for naysayers or trolls.
Yeah but we have Dustin May, Walker, Gonzoline, Treinen all injured. All X-factors, so the fried injury evens out the playing field.
Braves – penchant for swapping catchers for the last two months have resulted in both going ICE cold now that will hurt them in playoffs.
When Fried comes off the 15 day for playoffs, he might not do well as he will be out of rhythm
They would be wise to lower strider’s innings to ready him for playoffs
TDA over the past week has been much better. Murphy on the other hand….
What about the defensive results from Sean? I’m not a big sabermetrics person and don’t know if he’s regressed, but when your lineup is this stacked who cares about catcher’s offense?
Sean Murphy has 29 hits in his last 140 AB (July through Sept)
Sure, Murph’s offense hasn’t been great lately, but still managing a .860 OPS and 129 OPS+ going with his standout defense — I’m not complaining.
As a diehard Braves fan for the past 35 years, it’s funny to read about “Braves fans making excuses.” I imagine any team that has shown regular season dominance will always be criticized for not going all the way (14 straight division titles with only 1 ring). That said, this team is the most unique Braves team I’ve ever seen. I’ve turned the game off multiple times this year when they’ve given up the lead, only to be embarrassed when checking the score in the morning to see they came back for the win. I agree it’s all about who’s hot at the right time, but this offense is surreal. If they get eliminated in THEIR first round, so be it. But damn, it’s nice to see most of the core players locked up for years to come.
The entire roster should go on the IL. Only the playoffs matter now.
Braves are gonna smack the sh@@ outta whoever that play in their 1st rd. Fried will start game one and Stider game 2 and Morton for the sweep. People can hope etc all they want. A Doyer Brave NLCS is what everyone deserves. It will be fun and beautiful. Who knows who will win. Whoever wins should be able to squeak out a win over the AL champ.
RONALD ACUNA
40 HR 68 SB
!!!!
@hemlock. Braves won it all a couple years ago without Acuna and now he’s on fire. Braves got this. Lots of homers will negate some iffy pitching at times.