Fried and fellow southpaw Carlos Rodón both made appearances in the Cy Young voting after All-Star campaigns.
The 2025 MLB season is officially over, and now, instead of the regular season, it’s award season. Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers have been handed out, and the voting pool has selected the rookies and managers of the year. But there’s still plenty to come, and the Yankees continue to be involved.
The Cy Young Award is the most prestigious honor for an MLB pitcher to win. Yankees left-hander Max Fried was involved in conversations for it from the inception of the regular season, though an uneven middle month or two seemingly took him out of the running for the top spot. Now, with voting finalized, the winner was indeed the favorite: Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers. He was selected for the second consecutive season and is the first back-to-back winner in the American League since Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000. Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes was the unanimous winner in the National League.
BBWAA writers were allotted five slots on their ballots. Here’s the points breakdown for each AL pitcher who received votes:
Just outside the top three behind Skubal, Garrett Crochet, and Hunter Brown, Fried finished fourth, thanks to six third-place votes. Another Yankees southpaw, Carlos Rodón, finished sixth in voting. Both had been named to the AL All-Star team in July.
Fried finished the season with strong numbers, including a 2.86 ERA, 3.07 FIP, 3.41 xFIP and a 4.8 fWAR in 195.1 innings pitched. The 31-year-old won 19 games on the season, leading all MLB starters in the traditional stat. Fried’s 2.86 ERA was also good for eighth in MLB (as was his fWAR), with Skubal leading the AL at a 2.21 mark. This is his third time finishing in the top five in Cy Young voting, as he twice did so during his days in Atlanta. He was fifth in 2020 and then runner-up to unanimous winner Sandy Alcantara of the Marlins in 2022.
As for Rodón, this is his third time earning Cy votes as well, though his balloting has been more distant, finishing fifth and sixth for the 2021 White Sox and 2022 Giants, respectively. The ALDS unfortunately didn’t reflect it, but for much of the 2025 season, he formed a strong one-two punch with Fried atop the New York rotation. Rodón was second to Fried with 18 wins, proved durable for the second season in a row by tying for the AL lead in starts (33) while notching a 3.09 ERA and pacing the Junior Circuit with a 6.1 H/9. It was hard to make good contact against the 32-year-old, who was fourth in the AL with 203 strikeouts, the second 200-K season of his career.
Despite not winning the award, Fried performed about as well as anyone could have asked given the circumstances — coming into a new environment, team, and clubhouse alongside the fact that the Yankees’ true ace, Gerrit Cole (the 2023 AL Cy Young), would be out for the entire season. A fourth-place showing is nothing to scoff at, and the same can be said for a sixth-place finish by Rodón. Congratulations to the two of them!
The Toronto Maple Leafs are not only losing games, they are losing players at a rapid rate as they prepare to host the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night.
The Maple Leafs finished their 5-3 road loss to Boston Bruins on Tuesday without captain Auston Matthews (lower-body injury) and No. 1 goaltender Anthony Stolarz (upper-body).
Matthews left the game in the second period after taking a hit in the back from Boston defenseman Nikita Zadorov.
“I think it’s a penalty, personally, but I’m not the referee,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “I don’t like the hit. He’s in a vulnerable position.”
Matthews returned a hit on Zadorov before finishing his shift.
No matter who is available, the Maple Leafs appear to have a difficult task against the Kings, who are coming off a 5-1 road win over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday and have won two in a row, as well as three of their past four.
As for Matthews, he was to be assessed on Wednesday, a day off for the team.
After the game, Berube was uncertain about the severity of the injury.
“I don’t know exactly,” he said. “I can’t give you a timeline or how serious it is right now. I’m not sure when he hurt it to be honest with you.”
Stolarz was replaced by Dennis Hildeby after the first period but Berube did not seem concerned.
“I don’t believe that’s serious,” Berube said. “I think he’ll be fine.”
Goaltender Joseph Woll, who missed the early weeks of the season for a personal issue, is with the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League and is close to returning to the Maple Leafs.
Toronto already is without top defenseman Chris Tanev and forward Scott Laughton, who both have upper-body injuries.
The Maple Leafs have lost three straight after winning three in a row. They have struggled at times despite playing 12 of their first 16 games at home.
“It’s adversity, for sure,” said forward Max Domi, who had an assist for Toronto in Boston. “Every guy in here is champing at the bit. Everyone wants an opportunity and here’s our opportunity. Everyone’s got to step up. Next-man-up mentality.”
The Kings are playing well on the road, having won the first two matchups of their current six-game trip.
They are 7-1-2 away from home and will be pursuing a fifth consecutive road victory on Thursday.
“It’s weird — like, two years ago, same thing,” said Quinton Byfield, who had a goal and an assist on Tuesday. “We were hot on the road, last year we were hot at home, now we’re hot on the road, I guess, again. I can’t say anything about that, it’s kind of how it goes sometimes, so obviously you want to make it both home and away and get some wins at home, but we’ve got to finish the road trip strong.”
The Kings trailed after the first period at Montreal, then erupted for three goals in a span of 4:05 early in the second.
“We felt pretty good about the period, so to come out one down was disappointing,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “But I thought we did a good job not to overreact and just understand that the way we’re playing, just come out and do it again.”