Let’s do the cynical part first: There is every chance that for the next two seasons, new Atlanta first baseman Matt Olson will be every bit as good, and perhaps even better than, former Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman.
If we’re talking business, it’s quite debatable if the Braves made a smart business decision. The Freeman deal with LA now carry’s a $140M value because of the deferments. Olson’s deal is $168M. Freeman’s deal takes him through his age 37 season; Olson’s deal through his age 35. The Braves paid the additional price of trading four prospects, two of which are global top 100 prospects. Those carry significant monetary value, as well as lost opportunity to use them in other trades while retaining Freeman. A heavy financial and emotional price to move on from an Atlanta baseball icon, one who is beloved in the clubhouse and by fans throughout Georgia. It’s clear listening to Freeman that he intended to stay but the Braves didn’t budge. No negotiations. They didn’t even call him to tell him they’ve moved on. AA’s crocodile tears were the worst.
Love this article. I was just thinking this very thing. Mariners GM Jerry DiPoto wheels and deals but a lot of it feels like moving similar pieces around while crossing your fingers. It feels like nickel-and-diming. And the bottom line is we don't get to know the players. Once we kinda begin to get to know them, they're somewhere else. The longest-standing Mariner is ... Mitch Haniger? I guess? From 2017? The Ms have gone from "You gotta love these guys" (their 1990s ad slogan) to "You gotta have a program to even know who these guys are." And every year I feel less invested.
Cynical or realistic? When you're paying players hundreds of millions of dollars, you're going to make business decisions based on cold, analytical data. We wanted salaries to act like the free market and they have. This is an unfortunate unintended consequence. As some have pointed out, Freeman could have taken a very substantial amount of money to stay if it meant that much to him. It does work both ways. It sounds nice to say give certain players whatever it takes but like all businesses, teams will pass those costs on to the customer. Is that good for the game?
BTW, how well did it work out for the Royals to make sentimental choices?
When I read the comments I really wonder if people love baseball from a fans perspective or from a nostalgic perspective like I always thought was the case. of course it makes sense to move on from a guy in his age 32 year and not pay for the decline bit that isn't the point. the point is that major league baseball might need to establish nostalgic connections with its fan base to survive and teams moving on from franchise icons for younger and cheaper players takes away some of what baseball used to have Its like Gary Sheffield - if he plays for one team instead of however many ended up playing for does he get remembered differently by fans? does that propel him to being remembered differently for hof? does it grow baseball in a city because people have an emotional connection? the point of the column wasn't if it was a good or bad idea it was what is the impact to growing baseball and does the commissioner have a role to be the secretary of common sense now and then and say to a team this is good for business and bad for baseball?
I agree that letting Freeman go is a smart baseball move but a bad sentimental choice. For the large majority of players I think it makes sense to forego the expensive/likely decline years, but for franchise icons I think that shouldn't apply. A lot has been written about how baseball salaries are structured to vastly underpay starts for the first 6 years and then vastly overpay for the the late years (e.g., Pujols), but it would be great if there were some sort of mechanism in place so that those payments could be smoothed out and keep HOF-caliber players in one place.
I have to strongly disagree with you. I understand hearkening back to the days when players played for one team, but those days are over.
The Braves did not "jettison" Freeman. They made him a 5 year $135 million offer before the lockout, which would take him to his age 36 season, and Freeman reportedly wanted 6 for $180, with a higher AAV, somewhere in the neighborhood of $33 million, for not taking the 6th year. That is pretty far apart.
Freeman has actively looked around, and there was definitely a chance he would sign somewhere else, especially considering they were not that close.
So instead of possibly being in the situation of losing Freeman and already having Oakland trade Olson somewhere else, they went after him. No, Olson is not Freeman. But he is 4 years younger, a better fielder and even after the extension, he makes $6 million less per year than the amount they already knew Freeman would not accept, and $9-$12 million less than Freeman wanted. Will Olson be 70% of Freeman the next 5 or 6 years? My answer is definitely yes, especially considering the age difference. Can the Braves use Olson and $9 million or more a year to make their team better than it would be with Freeman? Again, Yes. This is just a good business decision.
I understand the nostalgia, especially from Braves fans, who had Chipper play his whole career for one team. But he was a unicorn when he did it. That breed was already dying out when George Brett and Robin Yount retired almost 30 years ago. It goes both ways as well. It could easily be Freeman leaving after spending a few weeks touring the league for the best offer, and the Braves searching the scrap heap for a replacement.
Old time fans will have to get used to it. (I am one, I did, and it was not easy) and the kids might as well begin to accept this reality that most of their favorite players will play for another team at some point.
I know you are a couple years younger than I am, but you sound a bit like an old man yelling at clouds on this one.
Keep in mind that Chipper Jones kept signing one & two year deals in his later years. Mainly because he wanted to stay with the Braves & leave on his own terms. He literally was deciding each year whether to play another year. At the end, he felt like he could still play, but it was too hard to stay healthy.
As a lifelong and hardcore Braves fan, I want to throw another vote behind what I’m seeing is the minority opinion: I am absolutely devastated to lose Freddie and so frustrated with Liberty Mutual not extending him far before this offseason. Maybe growing up with Chipper and his career presence has skewed my expectations, but I love the cheerful consistency and dedication from Freddie - especially as he was extended right before the team started tanking, and he was forced to sort of stick it out - and wish that, with his leadership on the team, could have stayed around, even if the numbers wouldn’t match Olson long-term. His expressed contract demand before the lockout was not unreasonable at all, and I don’t think Freddie’s performance is going to diminish that much over the next 6 years - this is not a Pujols situation. Freddie has earned his place as a leader on the team and in the franchise, and this is gutting. I’ll be wearing a Freeman shirt to any games I go to this year just because. Joe, thanks for giving a voice to my heartache.
I really disagree with this take. Your post is putting all of the blame on the team. If Freddie wanted to be a Brave, he would be a Brave. They offered him a 140M contract last year, which would have meant he would have made approximately 280M during his tenure with the team. I'm guessing they upped that offer a good bit too. Freddie priced himself out of the Atlanta market. Some team will grossly overpay for the back end of his career. Meanwhile Atlanta got a better, younger player for a steal of a deal. Sure, Freddie has a better batting average but Olson has a good bit more power. Last season Matt's wRc+ was146 compared to a 135 wRC+ for Freddie. Olson is likely going to get even better while Freddie is entering his decline phase.
Alex A. is a great GM. He wasn't going to grossly overpay Freddie. He offered a very fair contract, which was declined. Today he signed Colin McHugh using some of the Freddie savings. Emotions and sentiment don't win ballgames. Finally, I feel badly for fans of teams that don't even try to keep their best players. Look at what the A's and Reds are doing. The angst should be directed towards those teams. The Braves will be just fine.
As a Guardians fan, you had me nodding along about Lindor. But there should be some real cognitive dissonance writing this after all the lockout talk of the last couple of weeks. The whole reason that your friend will never lose Burrow is that the NFL crushed its players union, and now they have franchise tags and salary caps. If Burrow ever hit a real open market, he would be off to New York or Dallas immediately.
It’s a tough problem and I don’t know what the solution is, but you can’t pretend that luxury taxes are SOLELY about owner profits and then turn around and bemoan the fact that teams don’t keep their best players. They’re two sides of the same coin.
As for the Braves, they got rid of one good player and picked up a younger version of him. They’ll be fine. The real victims are the A’s fans, who once again lost a star player in his prime and have to hope a new kid develops. That’s what really makes you fall out of love with baseball.
For once, I find myself completely disagreeing with you, Joe. I can certainly see the argument that it's bad for baseball when teams don't feel they can afford to keep franchise icons (in the case of the Indians or A's) or when they have owners who are just too cheap to (in the case of Boston)--but the case of the Braves and Freeman don't mirror either. It wasn't that the Braves couldn't afford to keep Freeman, or that they let him go because they're just a cheap organization--they felt that he wasn't worth the long-term deal and they could acquire someone who was. This is a case of a front office making a decision in their team's best interest.
The job of the front office is to put together the best team they can, not the most whimsical. Franchise icons have to be lost at some point. To wit, what if he were 42 years old? All your arguments would still hold--he'd still be a franchise icon, the favorite player of many Braves fans, the object of many memories. Is there a point where the front office is freed from "But he's a franchise icon" and, if so, where is that point?
If a team and front office is trying to put together the best team they can, I can't see that as "bad for the game" unless that front office is either cheating or else taking advantage of unethical rules. You could make the argument that the Braves (notably, but not uniquely) do exploit unethical rules to crush young players in negotiations, but I don't think the Olson-for-Freeman decision built on unethical rules.
"What Atlanta did here is terrible for the game, and if there was somebody really watching over baseball, they would publicly and ferociously tear apart the Braves for it." I don't see it as bad for the game. Some other market will get Freeman and their fans will love it. With your way of thinking Mookie Betts being traded to the Dodgers was bad for baseball too. Yes, there are probably some Bostonians that agree but there are a whole bunch of LA fans that love it. (and probably New York fans that love it also)
Who will think of the Giants fans?? But that bias aside, I actually do think it's bad for the game when teams see such advantage in letting star players walk (and I think Joe has written about this too—the way the Red Sox' social media team was trying to get fan approval for this by posting "reset" memes, etc.).
I’ve been a Braves fan for years and this doesn’t actually bother me all that much. You see a lot of struggling teams in a lot of sports lose veterans because those veterans want a shot at the championship and it always sucks to see a guy get that championship somewhere else. Freeman got his with Atlanta.
To simplify, compare your feelings on Lebron’s first exit vs his second. The first one was bitter because he hadn’t won anything in Cleveland and he’d probably retire as a member of the Heat. Then he came back, won the championship and even if he retires as a member of the Heat, you can feel like Cleveland was a big part of what he did in the NBA.
Yes, the team made the decision, but if they knew they were going to be outbid, hanging around and losing alternatives isn’t a good strategy for anyone.
If we’re talking business, it’s quite debatable if the Braves made a smart business decision. The Freeman deal with LA now carry’s a $140M value because of the deferments. Olson’s deal is $168M. Freeman’s deal takes him through his age 37 season; Olson’s deal through his age 35. The Braves paid the additional price of trading four prospects, two of which are global top 100 prospects. Those carry significant monetary value, as well as lost opportunity to use them in other trades while retaining Freeman. A heavy financial and emotional price to move on from an Atlanta baseball icon, one who is beloved in the clubhouse and by fans throughout Georgia. It’s clear listening to Freeman that he intended to stay but the Braves didn’t budge. No negotiations. They didn’t even call him to tell him they’ve moved on. AA’s crocodile tears were the worst.
Terrific article. No wokeness, no bs. All good info, opinion and terrific points.
Love this article. I was just thinking this very thing. Mariners GM Jerry DiPoto wheels and deals but a lot of it feels like moving similar pieces around while crossing your fingers. It feels like nickel-and-diming. And the bottom line is we don't get to know the players. Once we kinda begin to get to know them, they're somewhere else. The longest-standing Mariner is ... Mitch Haniger? I guess? From 2017? The Ms have gone from "You gotta love these guys" (their 1990s ad slogan) to "You gotta have a program to even know who these guys are." And every year I feel less invested.
Cynical or realistic? When you're paying players hundreds of millions of dollars, you're going to make business decisions based on cold, analytical data. We wanted salaries to act like the free market and they have. This is an unfortunate unintended consequence. As some have pointed out, Freeman could have taken a very substantial amount of money to stay if it meant that much to him. It does work both ways. It sounds nice to say give certain players whatever it takes but like all businesses, teams will pass those costs on to the customer. Is that good for the game?
BTW, how well did it work out for the Royals to make sentimental choices?
Joe, it’s even worse than you described. Manfred would look us all right in the eye and claim that Liberty Media lost money last year.
He might. But Liberty Media is a public company, so financial information is public.
I don’t care if it’s just ‘bidness,’ my heart weeps for baseball.
When I read the comments I really wonder if people love baseball from a fans perspective or from a nostalgic perspective like I always thought was the case. of course it makes sense to move on from a guy in his age 32 year and not pay for the decline bit that isn't the point. the point is that major league baseball might need to establish nostalgic connections with its fan base to survive and teams moving on from franchise icons for younger and cheaper players takes away some of what baseball used to have Its like Gary Sheffield - if he plays for one team instead of however many ended up playing for does he get remembered differently by fans? does that propel him to being remembered differently for hof? does it grow baseball in a city because people have an emotional connection? the point of the column wasn't if it was a good or bad idea it was what is the impact to growing baseball and does the commissioner have a role to be the secretary of common sense now and then and say to a team this is good for business and bad for baseball?
I agree that letting Freeman go is a smart baseball move but a bad sentimental choice. For the large majority of players I think it makes sense to forego the expensive/likely decline years, but for franchise icons I think that shouldn't apply. A lot has been written about how baseball salaries are structured to vastly underpay starts for the first 6 years and then vastly overpay for the the late years (e.g., Pujols), but it would be great if there were some sort of mechanism in place so that those payments could be smoothed out and keep HOF-caliber players in one place.
I have to strongly disagree with you. I understand hearkening back to the days when players played for one team, but those days are over.
The Braves did not "jettison" Freeman. They made him a 5 year $135 million offer before the lockout, which would take him to his age 36 season, and Freeman reportedly wanted 6 for $180, with a higher AAV, somewhere in the neighborhood of $33 million, for not taking the 6th year. That is pretty far apart.
Freeman has actively looked around, and there was definitely a chance he would sign somewhere else, especially considering they were not that close.
So instead of possibly being in the situation of losing Freeman and already having Oakland trade Olson somewhere else, they went after him. No, Olson is not Freeman. But he is 4 years younger, a better fielder and even after the extension, he makes $6 million less per year than the amount they already knew Freeman would not accept, and $9-$12 million less than Freeman wanted. Will Olson be 70% of Freeman the next 5 or 6 years? My answer is definitely yes, especially considering the age difference. Can the Braves use Olson and $9 million or more a year to make their team better than it would be with Freeman? Again, Yes. This is just a good business decision.
I understand the nostalgia, especially from Braves fans, who had Chipper play his whole career for one team. But he was a unicorn when he did it. That breed was already dying out when George Brett and Robin Yount retired almost 30 years ago. It goes both ways as well. It could easily be Freeman leaving after spending a few weeks touring the league for the best offer, and the Braves searching the scrap heap for a replacement.
Old time fans will have to get used to it. (I am one, I did, and it was not easy) and the kids might as well begin to accept this reality that most of their favorite players will play for another team at some point.
I know you are a couple years younger than I am, but you sound a bit like an old man yelling at clouds on this one.
Keep in mind that Chipper Jones kept signing one & two year deals in his later years. Mainly because he wanted to stay with the Braves & leave on his own terms. He literally was deciding each year whether to play another year. At the end, he felt like he could still play, but it was too hard to stay healthy.
As a lifelong and hardcore Braves fan, I want to throw another vote behind what I’m seeing is the minority opinion: I am absolutely devastated to lose Freddie and so frustrated with Liberty Mutual not extending him far before this offseason. Maybe growing up with Chipper and his career presence has skewed my expectations, but I love the cheerful consistency and dedication from Freddie - especially as he was extended right before the team started tanking, and he was forced to sort of stick it out - and wish that, with his leadership on the team, could have stayed around, even if the numbers wouldn’t match Olson long-term. His expressed contract demand before the lockout was not unreasonable at all, and I don’t think Freddie’s performance is going to diminish that much over the next 6 years - this is not a Pujols situation. Freddie has earned his place as a leader on the team and in the franchise, and this is gutting. I’ll be wearing a Freeman shirt to any games I go to this year just because. Joe, thanks for giving a voice to my heartache.
I really disagree with this take. Your post is putting all of the blame on the team. If Freddie wanted to be a Brave, he would be a Brave. They offered him a 140M contract last year, which would have meant he would have made approximately 280M during his tenure with the team. I'm guessing they upped that offer a good bit too. Freddie priced himself out of the Atlanta market. Some team will grossly overpay for the back end of his career. Meanwhile Atlanta got a better, younger player for a steal of a deal. Sure, Freddie has a better batting average but Olson has a good bit more power. Last season Matt's wRc+ was146 compared to a 135 wRC+ for Freddie. Olson is likely going to get even better while Freddie is entering his decline phase.
Alex A. is a great GM. He wasn't going to grossly overpay Freddie. He offered a very fair contract, which was declined. Today he signed Colin McHugh using some of the Freddie savings. Emotions and sentiment don't win ballgames. Finally, I feel badly for fans of teams that don't even try to keep their best players. Look at what the A's and Reds are doing. The angst should be directed towards those teams. The Braves will be just fine.
I kinda don't get it... Freeman wanted more money than the Braves were willing to pay, so the team went with their Plan B. How is that a bad thing?
As a Guardians fan, you had me nodding along about Lindor. But there should be some real cognitive dissonance writing this after all the lockout talk of the last couple of weeks. The whole reason that your friend will never lose Burrow is that the NFL crushed its players union, and now they have franchise tags and salary caps. If Burrow ever hit a real open market, he would be off to New York or Dallas immediately.
It’s a tough problem and I don’t know what the solution is, but you can’t pretend that luxury taxes are SOLELY about owner profits and then turn around and bemoan the fact that teams don’t keep their best players. They’re two sides of the same coin.
As for the Braves, they got rid of one good player and picked up a younger version of him. They’ll be fine. The real victims are the A’s fans, who once again lost a star player in his prime and have to hope a new kid develops. That’s what really makes you fall out of love with baseball.
For once, I find myself completely disagreeing with you, Joe. I can certainly see the argument that it's bad for baseball when teams don't feel they can afford to keep franchise icons (in the case of the Indians or A's) or when they have owners who are just too cheap to (in the case of Boston)--but the case of the Braves and Freeman don't mirror either. It wasn't that the Braves couldn't afford to keep Freeman, or that they let him go because they're just a cheap organization--they felt that he wasn't worth the long-term deal and they could acquire someone who was. This is a case of a front office making a decision in their team's best interest.
The job of the front office is to put together the best team they can, not the most whimsical. Franchise icons have to be lost at some point. To wit, what if he were 42 years old? All your arguments would still hold--he'd still be a franchise icon, the favorite player of many Braves fans, the object of many memories. Is there a point where the front office is freed from "But he's a franchise icon" and, if so, where is that point?
If a team and front office is trying to put together the best team they can, I can't see that as "bad for the game" unless that front office is either cheating or else taking advantage of unethical rules. You could make the argument that the Braves (notably, but not uniquely) do exploit unethical rules to crush young players in negotiations, but I don't think the Olson-for-Freeman decision built on unethical rules.
"What Atlanta did here is terrible for the game, and if there was somebody really watching over baseball, they would publicly and ferociously tear apart the Braves for it." I don't see it as bad for the game. Some other market will get Freeman and their fans will love it. With your way of thinking Mookie Betts being traded to the Dodgers was bad for baseball too. Yes, there are probably some Bostonians that agree but there are a whole bunch of LA fans that love it. (and probably New York fans that love it also)
Who will think of the Giants fans?? But that bias aside, I actually do think it's bad for the game when teams see such advantage in letting star players walk (and I think Joe has written about this too—the way the Red Sox' social media team was trying to get fan approval for this by posting "reset" memes, etc.).
I’ve been a Braves fan for years and this doesn’t actually bother me all that much. You see a lot of struggling teams in a lot of sports lose veterans because those veterans want a shot at the championship and it always sucks to see a guy get that championship somewhere else. Freeman got his with Atlanta.
To simplify, compare your feelings on Lebron’s first exit vs his second. The first one was bitter because he hadn’t won anything in Cleveland and he’d probably retire as a member of the Heat. Then he came back, won the championship and even if he retires as a member of the Heat, you can feel like Cleveland was a big part of what he did in the NBA.
Yes, the team made the decision, but if they knew they were going to be outbid, hanging around and losing alternatives isn’t a good strategy for anyone.