Big 3 of MLB free agent aces: Top pitchers weighing the money
They are merely three high-end pitchers in a free agent class that, per usual, will not have a prize for everyone. Yet within the All-Star triumvirate of Corbin Burnes and left-handers Blake Snell and Max Fried, there are plenty of paths to pursue and talent to dream upon.
None will be cheap. Among them, they have three Cy Young Awards – one from each league for Snell – seven All-Star appearances, a World Series title and a couple of pennants. All should command nine-figure contracts.
And with the free agent market slowly easing into focus, USA TODAY Sports examines what each brings to the mound and why certain teams may prefer one over the other:
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Corbin Burnes: Big city
Age: 30
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Career wins, WAR, strikeouts per nine innings: 60, 17.6, 10.5
Odometer: 903 ⅔ IP
Medical chart: 2019 IL appearance with shoulder inflammation. Oblique, September 2020. Missed one start in 2021 due to knee problem. COVID-19 IL stint in 2021.
Platform season: 15-9 with a 2.92 ERA in 32 starts for Orioles. Finished fifth in AL Cy Young voting.
Market watch: The youngest of this trio (Fried is 10 months older), Burnes’ combination of age, health and dominance may land him the longest and possibly most lucrative deal of this group. Burnes has made 32 or 33 starts in four of the last five full seasons, and his 28-start 2021 effort earned him the NL Cy Young Award after he led the majors in ERA (2.43), fielding independent pitching (1.63) and strikeouts per nine (12.6).
His FIP hasn’t gone below 3.14 since and last year he gave up 22 home runs – one per nine innings – compared to seven in ’21 (a majors-best 0.4 per nine). Still, his 97-mph cutter – he throws it nearly half the time, often for putaway purposes – remains an elite pitch and Burnes ranked in the 95th percentile for hard-hit percentage (31.6%), making the modestly diminished strikeout numbers more palatable.
Outlook: He’s the meat and potatoes of this group – ace-caliber, reliable and has lifted mid-market teams to the postseason three of the past four seasons. The Mets and Dodgers figure to lead a charge of clubs that will include a few big plays from the middle class.
Blake Snell: One more time around
Age: 32 on Dec. 4
Career wins, WAR, strikeouts per nine: 76, 23.4, 11.2
Odometer: 1,096 ⅔ IP
Medical chart: Adductor strains in September 2021, April 2022 and April 2024. Groin strain in June 2024. July 2019 surgery to remove loose bodies from elbow.
Platform season: 5-3 with a 3.12 ERA and 145 strikeouts in 104 innings in 20 starts for Giants, including a no-hitter.
Market watch: Snell will not have to wait until March 19 to sign with a team, as he did last season while the upper-mid free agent market tanked. While a pair of injured list stints stunted the lefty’s overall numbers this year, he’s coming off one of the greatest second-half stretches in major league history: A 1.31 ERA and 1.64 FIP over 13 starts, with 111 strikeouts in 75 ⅓ innings, including that no-hitter in Cincinnati. The Giants went 11-2 in those starts.
Snell now ranks first in baseball history with 11.2 strikeouts per nine innings, and that number takes on greater potency when you consider Snell is growing more adept at pitching deeper into games. He’d never recorded an out in the eighth inning in his nine-year big league career until that no-hitter, and proceeded to reach or complete the seventh inning in three of his next five starts.
Why? The man simply blows away hitters when he feels the need, a trait he flashed in striking out 234 in 180 innings of his 2023 Cy Young season with the San Diego Padres. In 2024, he jacked his average fastball velocity up to a career-high 95.9 mph, boosted his whiff rate to 37.7%, best since 2019, and cut his walk rate from while cutting his walk rate from 13.3% to 10.5%.
See where this is going?
Outlook: Snell’s major league-high 99 walks in 2023 might have given big-money suitors pause in his long off-season quest for a nine-figure deal; Snell opted out of the second year of a Giants contract that paid him $32 million a year. That’s not even an accurate floor this time around.
Given his age and dominance, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Snell land a deal similar in length but more lucrative annually to the five-year, $185 million deal Jacob deGrom received from the Texas Rangers. On an annual basis, he just might land between deGrom’s $37 million and the two- to three-year deals for $42-43.3 million per year signed by Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Zack Wheeler in recent years.
Max Fried: Money trees
Age: 31 on Jan. 18
Career wins, WAR, strikeouts per nine innings: 73, 24.1, 8.6
Odometer: 884 ⅓ IP
Medical chart: Tommy John surgery in August 2014.
Left forearm neuritis, July 2024. Blister, September 2023. Forearm strain, May 2023. Hamstring, April 2023. Blister, June 2021. Back spams, September 2020. Blister, July 2019. Groin, August 2018. Blister, July 2018.
Platform season: 11-10 with a 3.25 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP over 29 starts and 174 ⅓ innings
Market watch: While his last two seasons have taken injury detours, there’s simply not many better pitchers than Fried since 2020. His 2.81 ERA leads pitchers with at least 600 innings pitched in that time – Burnes is second at 2.88 – and he’s seventh in WHIP (1.09) and second in home runs per nine innings (0.7). All this while pitching for a club that won the NL East every year from 2018-2023 and the World Series in 2021 – including a clinching Game 6 in which Fried pitched six shutout innings.
Yet in this bat-missing, power-pitching obsessed era, Fried cannot boast double-digit strikeouts per nine innings – he’s never topped the 200-strikeout mark – and slots a notch below Burnes and Snell for that reason. While he’s a decade removed from Tommy John surgery, consecutive years with IL stints related to forearm issues are a moderate concern.
What he does boast is a legitimate seven-pitch mix, a loose and athletic delivery that should age well and a knack for inducing weak contact: Fried has ranked between the 90th and 98th percentile for average exit velocity five consecutive years.
Outlook: Fried and the Braves never reached contract extension nirvana that Atlanta finds with so many of its young players, and thus he will soon be an ex-Brave. The patience will serve Fried well, though, as his new club will get an ace still maturing as a pitcher even as he’s closing in on a decade of big-game experience.
No surprise AL East clubs like Baltimore, Boston and Toronto have reportedly checked in early on Fried; all are unlikely to win a bidding war for Burnes or Snell, yet are committed to improving in 2025. Even if Fried finishes third in this dash for dollars, he’ll still have plenty of zeroes on his contract, like so many goose eggs hanging on a scoreboard.
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