re: The ATL Thread: 2021 World Champion Atlanta Braves Offseason Thread

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Olson singles in a run

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Last August, as Freeman was closing in on free agency for the first time in his career, (Chipper) Jones recalled pulling him aside. "I told him, 'If you go to free agency, and you get courted by all ... the big-market teams -- you're not coming back,'" Jones said. But more than that, Jones said, he implored Freeman not to try to play the Braves -- from his experience working with the front office, he warned Freeman that they would call his bluff. "I told Freddie, 'You're playing a dangerous, dangerous game ... They will move on without you, because Alex has a job to do. If he doesn't do that job, he puts his job in jeopardy.'"

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AFTER NEWS OF the trade broke, Freeman connected with a lot of his Braves teammates, and their perception was that he was broken-hearted over the turn of events. With Olson rooted at first base for years to come, there was no going back. Jones FaceTimed with Freeman on Wednesday, an 'emotional' hourlong conversation. "I didn't want to sound like a dad," Jones says. "I didn't want to say 'I told you so.'"

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Holy crap Freddie's agents screwed him if he really wanted to stay in Atl.

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I feel like I lost a family member," says Jones, who mentored Freeman at the outset of his career and felt his friend's pain over an hourlong FaceTime call the night that the deal with the Dodgers went down. "I lost a little brother. And that hurts."

"I wish like anything that we could go back in time, just about a week, and have a do-over. Just for Freddie's sake."

According to multiple industry sources who helped shed light on the negotiations, Freddie Freeman's divorce from the Braves took shape over the past year, while discussions between GM Alex Anthopoulos and Freeman's camp, Excel Agency, barely moved. Talks remained at an impasse until one final and immediate deadline that was set last Saturday and expired that same evening. When the sides couldn't come to an agreement, the Braves pulled their long-standing offer to Freeman off the table, pivoted quickly and traded for Oakland first baseman Matt Olson, signing him to the richest contract in club history.

In the end, the total value of the deal Freeman accepted from the Dodgers turned out to be not far from where the Braves' final proposal landed, especially considering the thick state tax of California (as well as possible contractual deferrals, a hallmark of a lot of the Dodgers' deals in recent years).

For Jones, the hardest thing to swallow is how close the two sides seemed. "I have no doubt, the Braves would've gone to 145 or 150," he says. "I'm not going to speak for Alex. I don't know the interactions between Alex and Excel. But somewhere in there was miscommunication, lack of communication, something...

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