Braves' Max Fried: Loses arbitration case

Fried lost his arbitration case Saturday and will be paid $13.5 million next season rather than the $15 million he hoped for, Justin Toscano of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Fried still has two more seasons to go before he reaches free agency, so Atlanta will get to keep one of the better lefties in the game around at a discounted rate. Fried owns a 2.68 ERA over the past three seasons despite a merely average 23.3 percent strikeout rate. He's relied on a high groundball rate (51.7 percent of that stretch) and a low walk rate (5.7 percent) to minimize damage.