Freeman gets qualifying offer from Braves

ATLANTA -- Now that Freddie Freeman has received his qualifying offer from the Braves, he can officially enter the free-agent market and learn how much other teams are willing to pay for his services.

The Braves extended a qualifying offer to Freeman before Sunday’s 5 p.m. ET deadline. This was essentially just a procedural move that guarantees Draft pick compensation if the veteran first baseman opts to sign elsewhere.

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This year’s qualifying offer is for one-year, $18.4 million. It’s the kind of offer that might have interested a free agent like Jorge Soler or Eddie Rosario, a pair of outfielders who likely won’t receive deals with that average annual value on the open market.

Freeman, 32, is coming off another stellar season in which he batted .300/.393/.503 with 31 homers and 83 RBIs in the regular season before helping to lead Atlanta to its first World Series championship since 1995. He is expected to receive a multiyear deal with an average annual value between $25-30 million. So he’ll no doubt reject this qualifying offer by the Nov. 17 deadline. By doing so, he positions the Braves to get a Draft pick beyond the Competitive Balance Round B, if he signs elsewhere.

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The Braves’ exclusive negotiating window also closed on Sunday. So the Yankees, Cubs, Rangers or anybody looking to add a first baseman can now make offers to Freeman, who has been a part of the Braves’ organization since being taken out of high school in the 2007 MLB Draft.

“Our goal is to sign him and to keep him a Brave,” Braves president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said. “But we’re in the free-agent process now, and that’s probably all I can say.”

At the end of the day, Freeman may get his wish to remain with the Braves. But this already feels weird in that Anthopoulos can’t publicly say much about one of the greatest players in his club’s history.

When it comes to the most iconic position players in Braves history, you have Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Dale Murphy, Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones and Freddie Freeman. Chipper Jones was the only member of this group to play his entire career for the Braves. But Andruw Jones was the only member of this group to leave the Braves while seemingly still in the prime portion of his career.

Freeman has made it clear he doesn’t want to leave Atlanta. But he also didn’t want to reach the free-agent market. Now that he has, he realizes he may not get his wish to follow the path that allowed Chipper Jones to play his entire career in Atlanta.

“They expressed they want to keep me here, and I’ve expressed I want to stay here,” Freeman said before the postseason began. “Did I think I’d be here with no extension? No, I didn’t think that at all. I thought this would be long gone. But I’m here.”

Freeman got off to a slow start as he and his wife dealt with the addition of two new sons. But from June 10 through the end of the regular season, he ranked second in the NL with a .342 batting average and sixth with a .960 OPS. His strong finish left him as the only Major Leaguer (min. 250 plate appearances) to record a 130 OPS+ each of the past nine seasons. Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt are the only other players to have done this seven times within this span.

Freeman also joined Aaron, Chipper Jones, Mathews and Murphy as the only players in Braves history to hit 30 homers with a .300 batting average in multiple seasons.

There was an assumption the Braves would have struck a deal before this season began. But at the same time, last year’s pandemic-inflicted revenue issues created some uncertainty that evaporated as the club realized strong attendance numbers long before October brought more financial success.

So is there reason to ask whether the Braves now regret not signing Freeman before this past season began?

“I think, at the end of the day, as long as you reach your goal of signing the players that you want to sign, you don't care when it happens, as long as it does occur,” Anthopoulos said.