Freddie Freeman looks to be worth more to the Dodgers than to the only team he has ever known after 15 years with the Braves, the last four of which he finished as a top 10 MVP finisher. Teams can only benefit from signing, developing, and maintaining a franchise player when ageing curves lead them more than the halo effect of doing so.
On Monday, Atlanta traded four young prospects to Oakland in order to get first baseman Matt Olson, who is four years younger than Freeman (and two years away from his own free agency). Olson is the best Freeman substitute available. But he isn’t Freeman in any way, shape, or form.
However, the Braves have shown no signals that they want to keep Olson and Freeman. He warned pals last year that if the Braves took too long to offer him a deal, he would return to his home in Los Angeles. After the 2021 World Series championship, Atlanta had a golden opportunity to sign Freeman, but they passed it up. It’s said that they offered Freeman $135 million over the course of five years, taking the Paul Goldschmidt contract (five years, $130 million) and adding $1 million a year.
From an accounting perspective, it could make sense. For the Braves, two peak years of Olson are worth more than the uncertain future of Freeman’s career, so they decided to trade for him instead.
In the near future, Freeman will join a select group of first basemen who have agreed to contracts for an average of $23 million or more per year. Miguel Cabrera, Goldschmidt, Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, and Chris Davis were the previous six players. All of the contracts were for a minimum of five years and a maximum age of 36.
What happened to the deals? What a mess! Even with two years left on their contracts (not including Cabrera’s) and three seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, these players have combined for just 12 seasons with an average or superior offensive performance (OPS+ of at least 100). Because first basemen are usually not very athletic, they tend to leave behind a lot of history.
Oakland fared well throughout the rebuilding process by concentrating on developing players in the centre of the field, but Atlanta only paid a modest price for Olson’s services. Cristian Pache is an excellent centre fielder with gold glove potential who may or may not be able to bat. In her 24th year of professional baseball, Shea Langeliers has played just 151 games (in part because of COVID, which cancelled the 2020 minor-league season; the trading prospects of the COVID generation is a case study in the making). Fastballs like Ryan Cusack and Joey Estes are what the A’s can hope for from their young pitchers.
