Max Fried was the most coveted free agent on the market.

He was a rising senior, enjoying a carefree SoCal summer, when a hurricane hit his mailbox, casually mentioning that his high school, Montclair Prep, would be dropping its athletics department. As classmates scouted colleges, the nation’s top-rated southpaw searched for somewhere to graduate.

Enter prestigious Harvard-Westlake, whose home dugout sat a few hundred yards from the one Fried called home the previous three years.

“We knew who he was and how good he was,” said then Harvard-Westlake coach Matt LaCour. “Max was a pretty hot commodity. I got a text from someone that said Max seemed interested, so I said, ‘Tell him to apply and I’ll call the admissions department right now.’ We were an easy fit for him academically, and the elevation baseball-wise where he needed to go.”