In 2020, Freddie Freeman was the National League MVP for Atlanta, and he led the Braves to the World Series championship in 2021.
In 2022, he will be playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The five-time All-Star first baseman agreed to a six-year, $162 million free agent contract with the Dodgers, multiple media outlets reported Wednesday night.
Freeman strengthens an already potent Dodgers team that has made nine consecutive playoff appearances and is just a year and a half removed from winning a World Series title.
He doesn’t even have to displace a bat from the Los Angeles lineup. Last year’s primary Dodgers first baseman, Max Muncy, could slide into the designated hitter role with the DH being adopted in the National League for the first time.
Freeman, 32, led the NL with 120 runs last season while hitting .300 with 31 homers and 83 RBIs. The prior year, in a pandemic-shortened, 60-game season, Freeman hit .341 with 13 homers, 53 RBIs, a league-leading 51 runs and a league-high 23 doubles.
He has finished in the top 10 in NL MVP voting seven times, and he won a Gold Glove in 2018.
Freeman has played his entire 12-year major league career with the Braves, producing a .295 batting average, a .384 on-base percentage, a .509 slugging percentage, 271 homers and 941 RBIs in 1,565 games.
In 42 postseason games, he has a .290/.393/.523 batting line with nine homers and 20 RBIs.
The Braves tacitly acknowledged that Freeman wouldn’t be returning when they acquired first baseman Matt Olson in a trade with the Oakland A’s earlier this week. Olson signed an eight-year, $168 million contract with Atlanta on Tuesday.
–Field Level Media