New Player Collection Underway: Max Fried

Every year I unearth a few new heroes from all my hours of watching postseason baseball. This past bizarre, pandemic-shortened year, I watched a ton of the NLCS, ALCS and World Series. The three guys that "popped" for me as new faves were Randy Arozarena of the Rays - me and everyone else, that is; Brusdar Graterol of the Dodgers (yeah, a Dodger!), and especially pitcher Max Fried of the Braves. The latter has absolutely electrifying stuff, and I have a feeling he's got a Cy Young and a World Series title in his immediate future. I decided to collect the guy.

I like that he's a disciple of Sandy Koufax, and grew up in LA worshipping the (legend of) the guy. I like that he went Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, where he wore uniform # 32 in honor of Koufax and played with fellow MLB pitchers Lucas Giolito and Jack Flaherty - on his high school team...! I like that he was drafted by the Padres out of high school way back in 2012, and that he looks like a high school kid on all his early cards.

I like that he now plays for the Braves, a team I've always cottoned to since the days of WTBS being a cable station we got at home, and watching Bob Hoerner and Dale Murphy on the late 70s Atlanta Braves every late afternoon - a team that I often got to see on TV more than my own San Francisco Giants. I like that he missed the entire 2015 season recovering from Tommy John, and now he's totally dealing.

I also dig Max Fried's cards, at least some of the ones I've been accumulating. Thought you might want to check a few of them out.