For the first few months of the season, lefty Max Fried seemed like a New York Yankees savior. Following the spring training injuries that put ace Gerrit Cole on the shelf for the year, and caused Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil to miss significant time, the Yankees needed Fried to come through big time. And he delivered.
Through June 25, Fried was a front-runner for the AL Cy Young award, posting a razor-thin 1.92 ERA over his first 17 starts, making his eight-year, $218 million contract seem like money well spent. Things couldn't have looked better, and former teammates came out of the woodwork to heap praise on Fried, both as a pitcher and a person.