When Freddie Freeman left the Atlanta Braves after the 2021 season, it was very big deal. He was a MVP caliber player and a Braves icon, there was last minute drama and pivot to Matt Olson, and the fallout was fascinating and reportedly resulted in Freeman firing his agency. While most of the dust has long since settled, MLB Network decided that Monday was the day that they were going to revisit the Braves "choice" ad nauseam and act blown away all over again that Atlanta could ever let Freeman leave.
There is no denying that Freeman has continued to be awesome since joining the Dodgers. He has averaged a .921 OPS since the start of the 2022 season and remains one of the best hitters in all of baseball. Where the MLB Network crews loses us is when talking about Freeman's departure and how it was somehow completely on the Braves that a deal didn't get done and that Atlanta royally screwed up.
Freddie Freeman's departure was unfortunate, but the Braves did the best they could given the situation
At the time, the five year, $140 million deal that was on the table from the Braves was in line with what the top first baseman were getting at the time with a couple notable outliers that every agrees were bad contracts. Freddie let his agents do the negotiating, they tried to give Alex Anthopoulos some sort of ultimatum, and he decided to go with trading for Olson and extending him instead. That is just what happened.
As a result, Freeman had to settle for less AAV and $57 million in deferred money to sign in LA. That isn't the Braves being cheap, that is the Braves knowing the market and wanting to pay Freeman what he was worth at the time without compromising their ability to keep their roster together for years to come.
In hindsight, would the Braves probably prefer having Freeman over Olson? Absolutely because again, Freeman has gone nuts the last few years. However, he wasn't quite that level of hitter most of the time when he was with the Braves (was still awesome) and Olson has been a lot better with Atlanta than people give him credit for. Had it not been for generational seasons from Ronald Acuna Jr. and Mookie Betts in 2023, he would have won MVP and his local ties make him a great ambassador to the community.
There is no denying that money played a role in the decision, but it doesn't feel like Atlanta did poorly there, either. Instead of paying Freeman $28 million a year and potential not being able to sign or extend other players, they locked Olson up on an extension (again, he's still a really good player) that pays him roughly $6 million a year less. Put another way, the difference in the deals allowed Atlanta to take on Chris Sale's money and we obviously saw how well that worked out.
There are other factors like the two players' ages, the fact that Freeman's health is a question mark after some injury issues in LA, and the length of the deals mattering, but those are sort of irrelevant here. Freeman's agents had a better deal on the table from the Braves than the one he ended up signing with the Dodgers especially when you factor taxes in and they botched it. You may wish that the Braves had offered more to avoid this problem, but you can't ask more of a team than giving him the best offer and Atlanta did. If you want to blame anyone for Freeman's departure, turn your gaze to Freeman and his representation because this was on him.