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Atlanta Braves: 4 year offer for Josh Donaldson could affect Freddie Freeman extension

By Seth Carter

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 03: Freddie Freeman #5 of the Atlanta Braves hits a home run against the St. Louis Cardinals during the ninth inning in game one of the National League Division Series at SunTrust Park on October 03, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 03: Freddie Freeman #5 of the Atlanta Braves hits a home run against the St. Louis Cardinals during the ninth inning in game one of the National League Division Series at SunTrust Park on October 03, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /
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Freddie Freeman (Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images) /

A look at current notable players under contract with the Braves

Guaranteed Contracts through 2021

Arbitration-eligible players due to be free agents in 2022

Arbitration-eligible players due to be free agents in 2023

Arbitration-eligible players due to be free agents in 2024

Arbitration-eligible players due to be free agents in 2025

For the 2022 season, the Braves have $15 million committed to Acuna, $5 million for Albies, a $9 million with a team option on Ender with a $1.02 million buyout, Will Smith with $13 million,  It’s a minimum of just over $34 million currently committed to Freddie’s free-agent season. The benefit of having loads of young talent under team control is that the Braves should have the flexibility to make a rather large offer to Freddie.

In the previous slide, I covered Freeman’s desire to be a Brave in an interview from 2018. Just over a year later he talked with Mark Bowman from MLB.com about his future amidst the Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado extensions.

Freeman displayed an even more serious desire to remain a Brave for the remainder of his career and to try and avoid free agency. My impression from this article was that if he plays well, he thinks the Braves will offer him the years and the money.

The article can be read here.

He’s spot on. The Braves have plenty of budget space to work with and have locked down two of the games premiere young talents in Albies and Acuna, on extremely team-friendly contracts. The core of the young pitching staff is still under team control for a while.

Even if the Braves add Josh Donaldson this off-season on a four-year deal, they should still be in good shape through the course of his contract with all of the young talents on the team surrounding Freeman and J.D.

In the next slide, we’ll take a look at if it is a wise investment for the Braves to hand out multi-year contracts to two mid-thirties players for big money.

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