Cody Snavely
On this day three years ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers shocked the baseball world and signed 2020 National League Most Valuable Player Award winner, multi-year all-star, and longtime Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman to a massive 6-year, $162 million contract.
The Atlanta Braves, fresh off a 2021 World Series winning season, made it a top priority to bring back franchise icon Freddie Freeman, but the impending Major League Baseball lockout that winter would derail the whole process.
Freeman and the Braves would not reach an agreement before the December 2nd deadline during the 2022 Major League Baseball offseason. With no agreement between the league and the players’ union, a lockout ensued, which lasted until March 10th, 2022, exactly three months, one week, and one day.
Freeman was one of several free agents still on the open market, and teams and players went into a signing frenzy with spring training taking place and the regular season a few weeks away.
The Braves, who were unable to reach Freeman’s reported asking price, pivoted, swinging a blockbuster trade with the Oakland Athletics for all-star first baseman Matt Olson and immediately extending him to an 8-year, $168 million deal.
With the move, the writing was on the wall that Freeman’s tenure in Atlanta was over. Over the next several days, multiple teams extended high interest in signing Freeman, but the final suitors, according to multiple sources, were the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays.
The Blue Jays seemed like a lock at the time due to their connection to Freddie Freeman’s parents, who were both native Canadians from Ontario. This is why Freeman plays for Team Canada during the World Baseball Classic.
However, the Dodgers, fresh off losing all-star shortstop, 2020 World Series Most Valuable Player, and left-handed power bat Corey Seager to the Texas Rangers earlier that winter, were eager to replace his impact bat.
Ultimately, the Dodgers entered the Freeman sweepstakes and came away with a massive multi-year deal that would bring him to Los Angeles and pair him with Mookie Betts atop the Dodgers lineup.
In just his three short seasons in Dodger Blue, Freeman, 35, has hit a combined .314/.399/.520 with a .919 OPS, 155 OPS+, and a collective 17.7 bWAR. In that time, Freeman has also finished in the top three in National League Most Valuable Player Award voting twice (2022,2023) and was a massive part in the Dodgers’ 2024 World Series win, where he slugged four home runs and twelve RBIs and hit a historic Game One walk-off grand slam.
Freeman has three seasons left of his six-year contract, including this year, and with the team, as stacked as it is on paper, he’ll have plenty of more opportunities to make his mark on the organization before his eventual Cooperstown introduction.
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