Death, Taxes, and Freddie Freeman Being Awesome

The world has modified in a variety of methods over the past dozen years, some good, and a few… not. One factor that doesn’t change, nonetheless, is the standing of Freddie Freeman at or close to the highest of the primary base dogpile.

If at any level over the past decade you made an inventory of baseball’s high first basemen and didn’t embody Freeman, you hopefully crumpled your record and began over once more. Freeman will rejoice the fifteenth anniversary of his 2010 main league debut with the Braves later this 12 months, and greater than 2,000 hits and 350 homers later, he’s possible simply rounding out the textual content on his bronze Corridor of Fame plaque.

Again in 2014 and 2015, the Braves made the choice to do a full rebuild, essentially the most important teardown of their roster because the late Eighties. Brian McCann, Andrelton Simmons, B.J. and Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, and Dan Uggla have been out, however when it got here to their star first baseman, they took the alternative strategy. Atlanta doubled down on Freeman, extending him on an eight-year, $135 million contract that secured his companies till after the 2021 season. Right here’s what the ZiPS projection had for him on the time:

Suffice it to say, the funding in Freeman was a sensible one. ZiPS thought the contract was cheap on the time, projecting him for 26.4 WAR for the size of the extension, and the algorithm would have provided him a deal value $154 million. He was even higher than that, amassing 35.4 over the subsequent eight seasons. Freeman was none the more serious for put on by the point the Braves have been good once more, and he remained the centerpiece of the offense, hitting .306/.398/.532, for a wRC+ of 142 and 16.7 WAR from 2018 via 2021, a stretch that included an MVP award within the shortened 2020 season and a World Sequence title within the closing 12 months.

Negotiations with Freeman on one other extension didn’t pan out as anybody anticipated. 4 days after the lockout ended, with Freeman nonetheless a free agent, the Braves traded for Matt Olson and signed him to an eight-year, $168 million extension. On the time, I believed it appeared like an inexpensive deal. In spite of everything, Olson was coming off a monster season of his personal in 2021, and was 4 1/2 years youthful than Freeman, who signed with the Dodgers later that week. Right here’s how the 2 gamers have carried out to this point with their new groups:

From the outcomes, you’d assume Olson was the one getting into his mid-30s, not Freeman. Olson has hit extra homers, however in most different methods, Freeman has remained the superior first baseman.

Nonetheless, we’re not right here to adjudicate previous debates over which first baseman Atlanta ought to’ve picked, however to marvel at Freeman’s agelessness. In 2025, he’s off to a blazing scorching begin, hitting .366/.431/.714 over the primary quarter of the season, for a Judgeian wRC+ of 210. If he doesn’t make his ninth All-Star staff this July, I’m in favor of a full congressional investigation. Freeman hasn’t had fairly the dizzying highs of two different modern Corridor of Fame-bound first basemen, Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, however his ability set has been way more enduring than theirs. By 35, Pujols was simply hanging on as a middling first baseman, and Cabrera’s final 12 months as a good starter got here at age 33. But Freeman stays precisely who he’s all the time been: a stable first baseman with energy slightly below the elites, glorious plate self-discipline, and the flexibility to line a gapper as simply as he crushes a homer. He additionally maintains a excessive batting common in an setting the place few else can.

Amongst gamers FanGraphs categorizes as first basemen, Freeman was simply out of the highest 20 in profession WAR via his age-31 season, his final with Atlanta. However in solely three-plus seasons since then, he’s already been one of many higher first basemen ever from age 32 onward.

This group of high first basemen via their age-31 seasons averaged a further 17.8 WAR for the remainder of their careers. Freeman at the moment ranks ninth amongst this group in WAR Age 32+, and if the ZiPS rest-of-season projection is appropriate, he’ll climb to sixth by the top of this season. This appears an opportune second to mission the remainder of Freeman’s profession, primarily based on knowledge via Tuesday’s video games.

If Freeman have been to achieve 80.9 WAR, that will be sufficient to rank him sixth amongst first basemen for his profession, and one of many 5 forward of him is Stan Musial, whom JAWS classifies with no consideration fielder. ZiPS now initiatives Freeman with a 61% likelihood of eclipsing 3,000 hits, the most effective odds of any lively participant, and a 36% chance of hitting 500 homers. By JAWS, ZiPS would put him in a useless warmth with the present sixth-place first baseman, Jeff Bagwell. The query actually shouldn’t be whether or not or not Freeman is a future Corridor of Famer, however whether or not he’d move the proverbial bus take a look at proper now. For me, he does. Additionally, why is our normal imagined demise for mid-career Corridor of Famers a deadly run-in with mass transit?

Time all the time finally ends up the winner in the long run. However Freeman is at the moment preventing time to a draw for longer than most greats.