All-Star swap: Yankees' Carlos Rodón replaces Max Fried on American League active roster

Gary Phillips, New York Daily News on Jul 11, 2025

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Another Yankee is heading to the All-Star Game.

With Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Max Fried already on the American League roster, Carlos Rodón was added on Friday. Rodón is actually taking the place of Fried on the active roster.

A source said that Fried is fine and is still scheduled to start for the Yankees on Saturday. He just won’t pitch in the Midsummer Classic on Tuesday, even though it’s taking place at Truist Park, the ex-Braves pitcher's former stomping grounds.

With Aaron Boone managing the American League after winning a pennant last season, there had been some assumptions that the skipper would/could pick Fried to start the exhibition, which would have made for a nice homecoming story. However, All-Star managers don’t pick the starting pitchers. Major League Baseball does. Managers set the lineups but only get to offer input on the starting pitchers.

Fried, meanwhile, will still get his homecoming, as the Yankees open the second half in Atlanta.

As for Rodón, he is now a three-time All-Star after earning the nod in 2021 and 2022. This will be the lefty’s first All-Star appearance with the Yankees after his tenure with the team got off to a rocky start.

Rodón posted a 6.85 ERA over 14 starts and battled multiple injuries in 2023 after signing a six-year, $162 million deal with the Yankees. He was better last year, posting a 3.96 ERA over 32 healthy starts, but he still wasn’t the pitcher who earned two straight All-Star selections prior to signing his mega deal.

This year, however, Rodón has better resembled the pitcher the Yankees sought. Scheduled to start Friday’s series opener against the Cubs, he entered the evening with a 3.30 ERA over 19 starts. His 28.3 K%, meanwhile, ranked ninth among all starters. The .185 batting average against him ranked third.

Rodón entered Friday fresh off a rough start, as he allowed six earned runs over five innings to the Mets on July 5. However, he’s certainly stepped up this season with Gerrit Cole sidelined.

Fried’s presence has helped, as Rodón has had a valuable resource to lean on while embracing his transition from a two-pitch pitcher to one with an expanded arsenal.

Always proud of his fastball-slider combo, Rodón previously said that he’s become less stubborn about sticking to his bread and butter as his secondary stuff has improved.

“To be transparent, I just wasn’t good enough with the secondaries to be like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna throw a 3-1 sinker’ and we have to be in the zone,” Rodón said, referring to previous seasons. “You have to be able to trust that you can actually just pitch. So it was a skill thing, as well [as stubbornness].”

Boone, meanwhile, has seen Rodón lean into a style of pitching that is much different from the one that earned him his other All-Star appearances.

“He’s just really grown at the craft of pitching over the last few years,” the skipper said. “You’re seeing a real polished, experienced guy now that is obviously really talented too.

“I think he takes pride in knowing, ‘I got a lot of different ways to go about this, to beat you on any given night,’ and he keeps showing that.”