'Excited is probably an understatement': Dodgers react to Freeman signing

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Clayton Kershaw and Justin Turner were going through Twitter. Austin Barnes was scrolling on Instagram. Max Muncy got word from his wife. Trea Turner and AJ Pollock were getting their phones blown up by friends.

All of them got the same news.

Freddie Freeman is coming to the Dodgers.

“Excited is probably an understatement,” Justin Turner said. “Obviously, there's been a lot of buildup and a lot of talk and a lot of anticipation as to what was going to happen. To finally see it go down and be official last night was -- I slept really good.”

With Freeman’s six-year, $162 million deal being announced as official on Friday, Los Angeles has one of the best lineups -- at least on paper -- in recent memory.

With Freeman in the fold, the Dodgers are set to have four former MVPs on their roster. They’re the first team to assemble such a team since, well, last season's squad. Eight of the nine projected starters in the lineup are former All-Stars. Will Smith, the only player not on that list, is arguably the best offensive catcher in the Majors. He’s on his way to representing the Dodgers in the Midsummer Classic potentially as early as this season.

“I’m super excited. He’s an unbelievable player," Pollock said of Freeman. "I got to watch him all these years. Now he’s going to be a member of this clubhouse. This lineup is going to be awesome. It’s going to be cool to look back and say this is a lineup that I was a part of.”

When did the Dodgers think it was possible to steal Freeman from the Braves? For Pollock, he said he expected it to happen a while ago. For the rest, it started to become a realistic possibility once the Braves moved on and traded for first baseman Matt Olson, effectively ending Freeman’s long tenure with the Braves.

“It seemed like that ship was sailed from there and then you always hear rumors about different teams, but it kind of seemed like we were always at the forefront of that,” Kershaw said. “I was just like everybody else, though, I didn’t really have any reason to believe we would get him and then we did it.

"It was good. It’s testament to [president of baseball operations] Andrew Friedman obviously, but better testament to our ownership. I mean, it’s like, these guys want to win and that’s awesome. It’s fun to be a part of.”

On Wednesday night, when news broke that Freeman and the Dodgers had reportedly agreed on a deal, Trea Turner took a look at the roster. After getting a few looks at what it might look like this season, he had a pretty easy response to someone he was texting.

“They said you guys got Freddie Freeman?” he said. “I said the Monstars. I just responded with the Monstars.”

The Dodgers have all the pieces in place to become baseball’s version of the Monstars, a team from the movie Space Jam that was constructed with otherworldly creatures that took the talents from the best basketball players in the world. They have what manager Dave Roberts called “one of the best lineups I’ve ever seen” and a few aces in the rotation that could help them until some of the young pitchers are ready later in the season.

But as good as the Dodgers can be this season, they have a level of understanding that a team can’t win a championship in Spring Training or on paper. Kershaw said there’s a chemistry and culture aspect to being a good team, two characteristics the Dodgers believe they have inside the clubhouse in order to win.

Even the Monstars came up short against Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes. The Dodgers have different plans. And Freeman will be right in the thick of things.

“You can’t just assume because we have nine of the best players in the game running out there every day that we’re going to win,” Kershaw said. “We have to work on that and we will. We’ll be good at it.”