Fried to make spring debut after clearing COVID-19 protocols

Braves starter Max Fried will make his spring debut today against the Red Sox, manager Brian Snitker said Monday.

Fried’s spring progress was slightly delayed after he was potentially exposed to COVID19 last week, which prevented him from making a start March 5. He has since cleared protocols and has been working out with the team.

“He’s good,” Snitker said. “It was no big deal at all. More about safety, making sure, just like we have since this started.”

Fried remains on track for the regular season. He’ll have time to make at least four exhibition starts this month.

The 27-year-old is coming off the best season of his career. Fried went 7-0 with a 2.25 ERA, carrying a decimated rotation. He also had a 3.04 ERA in four postseason starts. Fried finished fifth in Cy Young voting.

The judge overseeing the landmark NFL concussion settlement ordered a mediator to look into concerns about the league’s use of separate scoring curves — one for Black athletes, another for white players — used by doctors to evaluate dementia-related claims that retired players say “explicitly and deliberately” discriminated against hundreds if not thousands of Black players.

The mediation between the NFL and the lawyers representing the 20,000 or so retired players covered in the settlement comes after two retired Black players, Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport, filed a civil rights suit and a suit against the settlement in August that called for an end to the practice of racenormed benchmarks to assess their claims of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Both cases were dismissed.