23:08: The Dodgers and Freeman have agreed to a six-year, $162 million deal, according to ESPN’s Kylie McDaniel and Jeff Passan.link to twitter).
22:23: If completed, the deal is expected to be a six-year, $160 million deal, according to Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.on twitter).
22:17: drizzle now relay that the amount of the transaction may exceed $150 million.
22:09: The parties are “hard at work negotiating” a deal that guarantees about $150 million, Morozy adds.
22:03: Dodgers and Freddy Freeman are moving forward on a contract, according to MLB.com’s John Morosi (link to twitter). In recent days, Los Angeles has apparently been seen as the favorite to pick up the 2020 NL MVP title as the Braves pulled out of the race.
If it came to the finish line, Freeman would only add to the already loaded Dodgers lineup. Last season, Los Angeles finished third on the wRC+ team (no pitchers), and their overall score of .251/.339/.446 is 13 percentage points higher than the league average. Only the Astros and Giants fared better, and LA had a draw with the Blue Jays. they lost Corey Seeger to a free agent this winter, but Freeman stepped right into his own void as a left-handed, mid-level bat for manager Dave Roberts.
One could even argue that Freeman is a better offensive upgrade compared to Seager, who himself is one of the best hitters in the game. Freeman has always been a great bat, with no season since 2013 that his wRC+ rating dropped below 132. The run earned him five All-Star nominations, three Silver Slugger Awards and six top-ten NL MVP voting.
Freeman has remained at the top of his game for the past few seasons. He wiped out opposing pitchers .341/.462/.640 in a 60-game season in 2020. Among qualified attackers, only Juan Soto fared better by wRC+ standards, and Freeman took a landslide victory in Senior Circuit MVP voting that year. It was never realistic to expect him to repeat such an otherworldly performance over the course of a full schedule, but Freeman has returned to his metronomically consistent ways in 2021.
During the season, he appeared in 159 games and totaled 695 games with .300/.393/.503 hits. Freeman hit 31 homers, returned 12.2% of his shots and only hit 15.4% of his trips. He started the year with a relatively modest start by his high standards, but from June he got very hot. He hit .329/.404/520 in the last four months of the season. This production helped the Braves to their fourth straight division title, and Freeman picked up where he left off when the lights were at their brightest. He posted an OPS of .996 or better in all three rounds of the playoffs, helping Atlanta to their first World Series title since 1995.
After that championship, many expected Atlanta to try to strike fast to sign the Brave throughout his career. Freeman and the club had already once agreed to an eight-year contract extension in February 2014, which guaranteed him $135 million and delayed his first open market entry by five years. The Braves remained interested in keeping Freeman in the den, but the first baseman’s desire for a guaranteed sixth season quickly became a sticking point.
Atlanta, which made a qualifying offer to Freeman at the start of the offseason, reportedly put forward a five-year offer in the $135 million range. They are believed to have eventually pushed the guarantee up to $140 million, but the organization appeared to be opposed to putting a sixth year on the table. Freeman turned 32 in September, and the Braves’ superiors appeared to have serious reservations about guaranteeing him a conspicuous salary during his 37-year-old campaign.
During the lockout, there were rumors in the industry that Freeman and the Braves might go their separate ways. It became almost official when Atlanta made a deal to acquire the A star. Matt Olson Signed a $168 million extension with him on Monday afternoon. Freeman said goodbye to his former Atlanta teammates and fans on Instagram this afternoon.
It’s not hard to see why the Braves let Freeman go. Olson is over four years younger, so his extension only extended him to a 35-year season. There is a real risk of getting involved with any player in their 30s or so, and that’s especially true given that Freeman needs to keep hitting at a very high level to become an elite player. He is a reliable first baseman on defense, but is unlikely to become a perennial Golden Glove winner under 30.
Recent six-year contracts for free agents in this role have not been particularly fruitful. Each of the last four deals for six-plus years for first basemen is an eight-year deal for the Padres. Eric Hosmer agreement, return of Orioles Chris Davis under a seven year contract Prince Fielder a nine-year contract with the Tigers and a ten-year investment by the Angels in Albert Pujols — turned out to be missteps for the club.
Of course, that doesn’t mean Freeman’s Los Angeles deal will end the same way. First, it’s shorter than those other precedents, and Freeman has a much more consistent track record than Hosmer or Davis had at the time they signed their contracts. In fact, there is nothing to complain about in his aggressive profile. Freeman doesn’t chase many fields and he makes a lot of field contact both inside and outside the strike zone. It publishes high rates of exit rate and hard contact ratio every year. As is the case with most left-handed hitters, he is better at serving with his right hand. However, Freeman’s career score of .266/.348/.436 against southpaws shows he’s more than capable of holding his own without a platoon advantage.
Even after the Braves dropped out of the race, several teams continued to race for his services. The Red Sox and Padres have been superficially linked to Freeman in recent days, but it seems the surprise Race ended up being one of the Dodgers’ strongest rivals. Juan Toribio of MLB.com tweets made “strong efforts” throughout the process, but Los Angeles’ willingness to agree to a sixth guaranteed year proved to be a deal breaker in the end.
This is the return to Southern California of Freeman, a native of Orange County. In addition to financial and geographic appeal, he will be part of what is one of the best lineups in recent memory. It is possible that the Dodgers will present an Opening Day roster consisting of Freeman, Mookie Betts, Three Turner, Max Munsey, Justin Turner, Will Smith, Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger as well as AJ Pollock. Betts, Freeman and Bellinger are former league MVPs. Eight of those nine players received at least one All-Star selection; the only player not yet in the Midsummer Classic, Smith is among the best catchers in MLB.
The Dodgers built a similarly stellar lineup of pitchers, and creating such a lineup required significant investment from the owners. Last season, Los Angeles passed all three levels of the luxury tax, taking in nearly $33 million in fees. This season they will have another big waste.
The exact financial structure of Freeman’s deal is not yet known, but the average annual value of the contracts is still used for luxury tax purposes. Adding $27 million to that mark would move the 2022 CBT tab north of $277 million, according to Jason Martinez of the Roster Resource. Because they topped CBT last season, the Dodgers will pay increased fees as a second payer. They will be taxed at a 30% rate for every dollar spent between $230 million and $250 million, a 42 percent rate on excesses from $250 million to $270 million, a 75 percent rate on excesses from $270 million to $290 million, and a 90 percent bid. a tax on all surpluses north of $290 million.
Not all.