When Steinbrenner’s Yankees and Turner’s Braves met in the 1996 World Series, the clubs had the highest payrolls in their respective leagues. Ted Turner sold his teams/networks some time ago. The Braves are now owned by Liberty Media, which began as a cable company but does not own the cable rights to its baseball team.

The Braves are spending more than ever – they ranked sixth among MLB clubs in payroll last season – but can’t keep up with the Yankees and Dodgers. They wanted to keep Fried – for the record, they LOVE the guy – but were under no illusions about their chances. They assumed that market forces would prevail. Sure enough…

If Fried had been willing to take $25 million over five years, he would still be a brave man. It would also have cost himself $93 million. He found a team – we assumed it would be the Yankees or the Dodgers – that could offer eight years and didn’t care that the first four vastly outperformed the last four. Good for him.

This is not a dismissal. He helped the Braves win a World Series. He chose the time of his free decision wonderfully. Really and truly: Good for you, Max Fried.

Last winter, Aaron Nola — a pitcher of similar age and production — took $172 million over seven seasons to rejoin Philadelphia. That’s an average annual value of $24.57 million. Fried got eight at an AAV of $27.25 million. This is a bigger shock that everyone expected, but this is what can happen when baseball people get together.

The MLB winter meetings began with the signing of Juan Soto for $765 million over 15 years. The Yankees view their Queens-based neighbor as a suburban nuisance, but the rise of Steve Cohen as owner has us all wondering what might happen if a long-erring franchise gets better. The Yankees wanted to keep Soto. The Mets got him. Ouch.

Would the Yankees have invested as much in Fried if they had re-signed Soto? Perhaps. (They actually play different positions.) But maybe not. The Yankees are very popular on the back page of the New York Post. They’re coming off a World Series loss in which their sloppiness has become embarrassing. Soto is gone, but they still have Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole. The Bronx Bombers won’t shut down.

The Mets made big news on Sunday night. The Yankees made big news on Tuesday. Where are the Braves? Right where we knew they would be. We assumed Fried would leave. We assumed they would never put that much money into a player, let alone a pitcher, for so many years. You may not like it, but that’s how this club works.

The year after Josh Donaldson’s departure, the Braves made it to the NLCS for the first time since 2001. The year after Freddie Freeman left, they won 101 games. The year after Dansby Swanson left, they won 104. They had a bad season by their standards, but how many teams could have lost Ronald Acuña Jr., Spencer Strider and Austin Riley to season-ending injuries and still made the playoffs can? ?

I’m pretty sure the Braves have a plan that envisions a future without Fried. I’m pretty sure they’ll field a team next year.