Cubs’ Rizzo Over Atlanta Braves’ Freeman? Why?

MLB Network recently released their annual list of the top 100 current players in the game. At #18, Freddie Freeman was the only Braves player to make the list, and his ranking behind Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo raises some questions.

We’re wrapping up the year’s “rankings season”… you know, the topics that the networks go to when the hot stove has cooled and Spring Training games haven’t quite started yet.

But when our Atlanta Braves stars seem to get dissed in the process… well, that makes us a bit sad.

FREEMAN RECOGNIZED

First off, bravo Freddie. Landing in the top 20 of this list is impressive and it means that Freddie is recognized as one of the truly elite players in baseball. However, being ranked behind Anthony Rizzo – who is two spots ahead at #16 (full list here) – should spark some more dialogue as far as the Rizzo vs. Freeman debate is concerned.

Remember, this comes on the heels of Rizzo winning the NL Silver Slugger Award over Freeman last season, which, Braves twitter quickly pointed out, was completely unwarranted.

The only major categories that Rizzo was better in were RBIs and K%, which are not valuable enough stats to vault him over Freeman.

For instance, Rizzo had 18 more RBIs than Freeman did, but Rizzo also saw a total of 100 more baserunners when he stepped up to the plate in 2016. Furthermore, Freeman’s K% dropped in the last couple months of the season after the addition of Matt Kemp, who provided protection in the lineup behind Freeman, which Rizzo had all season long in the form of either Kris Bryant or Ben Zobrist.

Here are their 2016 stats side-by-side:

The question remains: Why does Rizzo keep getting praise over Freeman?

The easy answer would be that Rizzo plays in Chicago for a team that just ended a 108-year World Series drought, so, naturally, there is going to be a lot of buzz surrounding the star players of that team. While that may be true, I’ll cut the MLB Network a little bit of slack.

According to MLB Network’s website that contains the list of the top 100, there are more factors taken into account than just the 2016 season. It cites specifically that player performance “over the past several seasons” is taken into account, while the 2016 season is emphasized. Further, it takes 2017 projections into account, as well.

Based on these criterion, it is understandable that Rizzo is above Freeman because Rizzo had more consistency than Freeman did in both the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Rizzo has put up three consecutive years with at least 30 home runs and OPS’d at least .899 in each of those seasons, also. I guess my only strife with the list, then, is that the title is Top 100 Players Right Now.

Why would a list that wants to inform us of who the best players of right now are care about what the players did a couple of years ago?

Over the past couple of years, Freddie has caught up to and then passed Rizzo in terms of who is the better player… despite losing time in 2015 to a fairly serious wrist injury.