Cody Snavely
Last winter, the Los Angeles Dodgers made huge strides to revamp their starting rotation after watching the Arizona Diamondbacks dismantle them in the 2023 National League Division Series primarily due to the starting rotation led by an injured Clayton Kershaw, rookie right-handed pitcher Bobby Miller and home run happy veteran Lance Lynn. The trio posted a collective ERA of 63.90 in 4.2 innings, and the Dodgers went home in another early exit.
As we all know, the Dodgers front office led by President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and General Manager Brandon Gomes would have an offseason for the ages, spending over one billion dollars in free agency. While two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani was the face of the offseason, the Dodgers brought in some much-needed depth.
Internationally, the Dodgers inked right-handed pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto on a massive 12-year $325 million deal, the largest for a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball history. They acquired right-handed flamethrower Tyler Glasnow from the Tampa Bay Rays, and to prove they were committed to him, they gave him a 5-year $136.5 million extension. To provide some depth in the backend, the Dodgers inked veteran lefty James Paxton and kept future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, who would miss the first half of the season as he rehabbed his shoulder surgery.
However, despite doing everything right, the Dodgers still have a case of Déjà vu dealing with perhaps even more injuries to their pitching staff this season. The first to go down was Yamamoto, who would miss most of the second half with a rotator cuff strain. Glasnow, despite setting a new career high in innings pitched (134.0), would be shut down in September due to an elbow injury. Rookie Gavin Stone, who stepped up massively, would suffer a season-ending shoulder injury. Veteran lefty Paxton was DFA’d and shipped back to Boston, and Kershaw would end his season on the injured list.
Overall, in 2024, the Los Angeles Dodgers used nineteen different starting pitchers, which was by far the most in baseball this season. But despite all odds, the Dodgers still managed to win the National League West, finish with the best record in Major League Baseball, winning the National League Pennant, and defeat the New York Yankees in the 2024 World Series with just three starting pitchers (Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Walker Buehler) and a bullpen that started four games winning two of them.
While it was an unorthodox route to the franchise’s eighth World Series title, it is something they’ll have to address yet again heading into the 2025 season.
As it currently stands, Glasnow and Yamamoto are the two locks in the rotation. Kershaw and Buehler are free agents. Gavin Stone and River Ryan are likely out all of next season as they rehab from their surgeries. Tony Gonsolin and Emmet Sheehan are coming off Tommy John Surgery. And with Ohtani having labrum surgery, he will likely be delayed also. To make a long story short, the Dodgers will be in the market for starting pitching, and multiple MLB insiders have them linked to two of the best left-handed starters, Blake Snell and Max Fried.
Will Another Hometown Kid Join the Rotation?
Max Fried, 30, has been the cornerstone piece in the Atlanta Braves starting rotation in their current run of postseason appearances and division titles.
Since making his debut during the 2017 season, Fried has a 3.07 ERA, 1.116 WHIP, 3.29 FIP, and 140 ERA+. He is a two-time National League all-star and a three-time Gold Glove Award winner in 884.1 innings pitched. He also finished twice in the top five of National League Cy Young voting (2020, 2022).
His best season (not counting the 2020 shortened season) was during 2022, in which the lefty went 14-7 in thirty starts with a 2.48 ERA, 2.70 FIP, 1.014 WHIP but fell just short to Miami Marlins right-handed starter Sandy Alcántara.
Despite Fried averaging around 93-95 mph in velocity and having a decent seven-pitch mix, he is not known for getting the swing-and-miss stuff that most pitchers in today’s game covet.
His strikeout rate is slightly above average but not elite, at 23.7%. What has been elite is Fried’s command (combined 6.1% walk rate over the past four seasons) and his ability to pile up grounders. Fried has never posted a ground-ball rate lower than 51%—the league average in 2024 was 42.2%—and he peaked with an outstanding 58.8% this past season.
Fried does a very great job at keeping hitters off balance, but with the high ground-ball rate, you’d have to have a decent defense behind you, and for most of his time in Atlanta, he has led to a ton of success.
Speaking of Fried’s seven-pitch mix, he primarily throws his 4-seam fastball 33.6% of the time and his signature curveball 21% of the time. However, the lefty also has a sinker (15.6%), changeup (13.6%), sweeper (5.9%), slider (5.6%), and cutter (4.7%).
Fried’s style and pitch selection have led to that huge ground-ball rate, which is also why he ranks in the 95th percentile in AVG Exit Velocity, 89th in Barrel percentage, 81st in Hard-Hit percentage, and 96th in ground-ball percentage.
While the 2024 season was not the best of his career, he kept the Braves afloat after losing right-handed starter Spencer Stider to season-ending Tommy John Surgery.
Fried went 11-10 in twenty-nine starts with a 3.25 ERA, 1.164 WHIP, 3.33 FIP, 128 ERA+, 166 strikeouts, and 57 walks in 174.1 innings pitched.
Where Fried has struggled in his career is where the lights shine brightest in October as most of his counting stats shoot up, such as ERA (5.10) and WHIP (1.495), and he holds a 2-5 record in sixty-seven innings pitched.
Those struggles were shown extensively in the Atlanta Braves game two loss in the National League Wild-Card round against the San Diego Padres, where Fried allowed five runs on eight hits in two innings pitched in a 5-4 season-ending loss. However, it only takes one season to change that narrative.
Despite these flaws, the only other issue that could come up with Fried is his health. During the 2024 season, Fried missed a handful of starts due to left forearm neuritis. In 2023, Fried missed extensive time on the injured list with a forearm strain, which is about the last thing you’d want to hear regarding a pitcher with a decent chunk of mileage on his left arm.
However, Fried’s FanGraph projection is well within line with what we have seen so far throughout his career, with a projected 3.39 ERA, 3.46 FIP, and 1.24 WHIP in 170.0 innings pitched for 2025.
What may be Fried’s biggest challenge this offseason is that he is one of thirteen players who was offered the one-year $21.05 million qualifying offer, so if he were to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers, they’d lose a draft pick in the process.
Despite the hurdle a qualifying offer can impose on a player’s free agency, Fried is still expected to sign a multi-year deal with no problem.
According to MLB Trade Rumors, Fried is projected for a six-year $156 million ($26 million AAV) contract, while Spotrac’s projected market value is $136.3 million ($22.7 million AAV).
The Dodgers’ potential pursuit of the left-handed starter may be aided by various sources circulating rumors over the last two years that Fried wants to play on the West Coast.
Fried, a Santa Monica native, grew up a Los Angeles Dodgers fan, and people close to his family have long speculated that once the lefty hit free agency, he’d return home with a strong preference for the Dodgers.
If Fried would join the staff, he’d be the third pitcher in the last two seasons with strong ties to the area, joining Tyler Glasnow (Santa Clarita, California) and Jack Flaherty (Burbank, California).
If You Can’t Beat ’em, Join ’em: The Case for Snell
Blake Snell and the Los Angeles Dodgers have been entangled for the last four years. In 2020, Snell was part of the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays team, which lost in six games to the Dodgers in the 2020 World Series in Arlington, Texas.
During that World Series, the Dodgers got an early taste of what was to come of left-handed pitcher Blake Snell, who tossed ten innings while only allowing three earned runs in two games. If it weren’t for Rays manager Kevin Cash‘s questionable decision to remove him from game six, we could be looking at that series entirely differently.
After that season, the Rays, in their usual fashion, traded the lefty to the Dodgers National League West rival, the San Diego Padres.
Snell would play a pivotal role for the Friars, who would get the best of the Dodgers in the 2022 National League Division Series, beating the 111-win Dodgers in four games.
In his third and final year in San Diego, Snell would put it all together, winning his second career Cy Young Award after going 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA, 1.189 WHIP, and 3.44 FIP in 180.0 innings pitched that season.
Entering free agency that winter, Snell would look to cash in on his big league success so far, which included two Cy Young awards after also winning one during the 2018 season with the Tampa Bay Rays.
However, that big payday would never come, and he would settle for a two-year contract for $62 million with the San Fransisco Giants.
The 31-year-old lefty’s 2024 season can be a tale of two halves. During the Giants’ first half, Snell was a shell of himself, posting a then career-high 6.31 ERA and being placed on the 15-day injured list with a groin issue. However, once Snell returned, he was his old dominant self.
In the second half of the 2024 regular season, Snell posted a 1.45 ERA in 68.1 innings pitched. Despite having a one-year $38.5 million option for the 2025 season, Snell decided to bet on himself again and test the open market.
Between the numbers, it’s not hard to understand why Snell is still looking to get the long-term contract he’s coveted since last winter.
The advance metrics on his Baseball Savant page shows an elite pitcher’s ranking in the 98th percentile in Whiff percentage (37.4), 98th in strikeout percentage (34.7), and 90th in Pitching Run-Value.
While Blake Snell strikeouts hitters at an above-average clip, where he really drives fans of the game crazy, it is the number of walks that he gives up.
Ask any baseball fan who is the most frustrating pitcher to watch in a full nine-inning game, and odds are, they’d say Blake Snell. Just last season, Snell ranked in the 18th percentile in walk percentage (10.5), and in 104.0 innings pitched last season, the lefty had forty-four walks and a 1.048 WHIP.
Besides, Snell’s 2018 season walks have always been an issue or part of his overall game. It’s the trade-off to the other side of Snell, which is little contact and high strikeout totals.
His overall numbers in 2024, despite a bad first half of the season, were respectable. The lefty went 5-3 in twenty starts with a 3.12 ERA, 1.048 WHIP, 2.43 FIP, and 124 ERA+.
Interestingly, it is not the first time the Dodgers have been linked to Snell in free agency. According to David Vassegh from AM 570 LA Sports, the Dodgers were heavily invested in Snell last offseason but came up just short of the Giants’ offer.
According to the Athletic, this past trade deadline, the Dodgers were in deep discussions to acquire the lefty from the Giants, but a deal never materialized (for obvious reasons). It shows that the Dodgers, even recently, still have a massive interest in the 2023 Cy Young winner.
What also may make the Dodgers even more aggressive in terms of a contract with Snell over Max Fried is that Snell was not eligible for the qualifying offer, so if the Dodgers do sign him, they will not have to forfeit a draft pick.
Overall, Snell, after back-to-back great seasons, many insiders finally project the southpaw to get the payday he deserves. MLB Trade Rumors has Snell projected for a five-year $160 million contract, while Spotrac has him pegged for a five-year $131.385 million contract.
The projections at FanGraphs still love Snell. He is on pace to have a 3.36 ERA, 3.35 FIP, and 1.21 WHIP in 176.0 innings pitched for the 2025 season, which would be thirty more innings than what the Dodgers got from their leader in 2024 (Gavin Stone, 140.0).
Conclusion
There are no ifs, ands, or buts about the Dodgers’ free agent plans this offseason regarding starting pitching. Of the top five starting pitchers in the free agent market: Blake Snell, Max Fried, Corbin Burnes, Jack Flaherty, and Nathan Eovaldi; I expect the Dodgers to get one of these names.
While I still slightly lean toward Max Fried in this scenario due to his age, consistency, and overall preference for the West Coast, the qualifying offer could hurt his chances. The Dodgers already lost a draft pick last offseason when they signed two-way star Shohei Ohtani and could lose more with their high payroll.
On the other hand, Snell, despite being a great pitcher overall with two career Cy Young Awards, the walks concern me, and his agent, Scott Boras, could be an issue for the Dodgers as the two sides do not have the best history.
That said, I still think I’d have to go with Max Fried, the hometown kid making his anticipated return to the West Coast and joining the Dodgers pitching staff as the new left-handed ace, but I would not be shocked if the Dodgers go the Blake Snell route.
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