Inside Freddie Freemans rollercoaster season in L.A.: Got my closure. Im a Dodger

June 07, 2024

Late one night in June — or early one morning, given the bleary-eyed arrival time coming off a cross-country flight — Freddie Freeman sat in a Denver hotel room and picked at a wound.

The pain was still raw. His eyes were still red. Only hours earlier, the league’s 2020 MVP had walked out of Truist Park in Atlanta visibly drained, his voice weary.

Freeman’s salve came as his fingers tapped on his phone. Words, after all, are how the Freemans live, express themselves, process and heal. Sentences became paragraphs, the emotional residue of a development he never anticipated.

What started as an explanation of his feelings turned therapeutic. For three days in Atlanta, Freeman made clear what he’d said from the outset — he had wanted to retire a Brave. His first afternoon back at his longtime home since last October’s World Series parade was marked by tears, and a defiance when pressed on the desire for closure. What would I need closure for, he responded. More tears and cheers followed throughout the weekend, an outpouring of emotions.

Eventually, Freeman found a conclusion. The text message pinged through the Dodgers’ players group chat in the wee hours.

Thank you for bearing with me, it read.

“That’s when the boulder came off,” Freeman recalled months later. He’d phone Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, the next day to deliver the same sentiment.

“Sorry it took three months,” Freeman told his new boss.

“Three months?” the club’s architect replied. “I thought it’d take you like a year.”

It has taken much less than that.

Months after Freeman’s stunning departure from Atlanta, the 33-year-old first baseman has put together one of the finest seasons of his career. He led the majors in hits, falling just one shy of winning the batting title. He will again collect MVP votes.

As the Dodgers stormed to win a franchise-record 111 games — the most for a National League club in more than a century, and more than all but three clubs in baseball history — Freeman’s arrival has taken baseball’s exemplar franchise for sustained regular-season success and brought it to new heights.

Freeman found the closure he said he didn’t want.

His wife, Chelsea, and three kids have settled in, enjoying the franchise’s emphasis on time and resources for families. The Dodger blue threads have started to look more natural. Teammates and coaches alike have noticed an ease in his demeanor, a willingness to joke and throw out a one-liner or two.

In turn, the Dodgers’ engine of success has tweaked some of its ideas in Freeman’s image. The offense has hummed, scoring more runs than any other club in the sport. The Dodgers paced the rest of the majors in wins, and are perhaps the biggest hurdle facing the now Freeman-less Braves as they pursue another title.

“I’m happy I’m here now,” Freeman said.

An awkward arrival followed an unexpected and gut-wrenching breakup.

For months, if not years, Freeman had been vocal about what appeared to be a given: He wanted to be a Brave for life. He was the player the franchise kept during its downswing, the bridge between eras.

“We had our whole lives set up in Atlanta,” Freeman said.

That 2018 Braves ran into a Dodgers buzzsaw in the NLDS. The two sides faced off twice more in the coming years in the NLCS, Atlanta finally toppling Los Angeles last October in six games en route to a World Series title. In the moments that followed, Freeman was bullish about contract negotiations between the two sides — he wanted to remain a Brave.

Freeman took meetings entering his first foray into free agency. He noted the ease he felt in speaking to Friedman and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts over Zoom. In the waning moments before baseball’s lockout halted player movement last winter, Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner tried calling Freeman over FaceTime to no avail. Freeman snapped back a photo of himself feeding a bottle to his youngest son, Maximus.

Just don’t forget about us, Turner replied. Even then, the chances of landing Freeman were slim.

“I didn’t think it was all that likely,” Friedman said.

Once the gates reopened in March, Friedman dialed the first baseman’s then-agent, Casey Close, to inquire about Clayton Kershaw. Conversations about luring Freeman from Atlanta were on the periphery, a faint hope.

Freeman’s first call had been with Atlanta. But having rejected the Braves’ proposals in August 2021, his now-former agents had their own counterproposals rejected once the frenzy began in March.

Within weeks, Freeman rolled up to the Dodgers’ spring training facility in Arizona in a fully tailored suit and Louboutin shoes, glove in hand.

It had only been a handful of days since Atlanta introduced its new first baseman, Matt Olson, with the ink already dried on an extension. The Dodgers offered comfort, a chance to return near his Orange County home, and a chance to win.

As jarring as it looked, there Freeman was — the Dodgers’ smiling new $162 million man, saying that his old club’s move to acquire Olson had “blindsided” him.

“It was still a real topic when we signed him,” Friedman said.

The Dodgers sought to make Freeman’s transition easy. They quickly reached out to offer assistance — Freeman and Chelsea would have to make arrangements for their 6-year-old son, Charlie, having already signed him up for Little League in the Atlanta area and looked at schools. Ownership, including part-owner Alan Smolinisky, opened lines of communication, seeking to make the last-minute move comfortable. The Dodgers’ hitting staff of Robert Van Scoyoc, Brant Brown and Aaron Bates asked about Freeman’s routines, ones he’d crafted for years in Atlanta under hitting coach Kevin Seitzer. Infield coach Dino Ebel pinged Freeman early, seeking to bring along some of the everyday processes Freeman had grown accustomed to with the Braves’ Ron Washington — regularly picking groundballs of varying sizes with different gloves.

“I think we counted up the other day, I told him, you take 13,602 picks (before) 162 games,” Ebel said. “That’s his routine. That’s not counting playoffs or spring training.”

Yet for as much as Freeman called this a homecoming — the opportunity to play in front of his family, the regular batting practice sessions in Irvine with his father, Fred — it was not steady.

“It’s like a divorce,” Freeman said. “It really was. You go through the questions and all the sadness. You’ve got to go through it all.

“We had stuff figured out, but we still didn’t feel like we were on the ground yet.”

As the Dodgers stormed out to one of the game’s best starts, Freeman’s bat followed. The trumpets of Freeman’s walk-up song, “Baila Conmigo” (a Charlie Freeman selection), echoed through a raucous crowd at Dodger Stadium as the first baseman produced with the same all-fields approach that has made him what Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw called “a unicorn” and one of the sport’s most consistent offensive forces.

Those moments were an escape. Baseball was always where Freeman found peace. Since his mother, Rosemary, died of melanoma when Freeman was 10, the dirt of the baseball diamond has become his center. Regaled for his extreme focus and ability to lock on, pitch to pitch, Freeman blocked everything out.

“Baseball is baseball to me,” Freeman said. “Once my mom died, my dad and I would come out and baseball was the place for us to forget. It’s always been like that.”

Until that weekend in Atlanta.

Back in Atlanta for the first time since negotiations with the Braves fell apart, Freddie Freeman acknowledged an ovation from the fans. (Dale Zanine / USA Today)

He entered a press conference that Friday afternoon and exited before saying a word, overcome with emotion. As he eventually spoke, he clutched a towel and wiped away tears. More followed throughout the night and the weekend.

The emotion appeared to almost catch him by surprise. For weeks, he’d shrugged off the notion that he needed a return to Atlanta. He spoke with excitement about the prospect of collecting his World Series ring and reuniting with his teammates. He spoke glowingly of his time there.

In that tearful press conference, he said that love for the place he’d called his big-league home for 12 years and the only franchise he’d ever known wouldn’t fade.

“If he had his druthers, he would never change,” Friedman said of watching his new first baseman grapple with the weekend. “He’s a creature of habit, he would’ve stayed in one place, with all that goes with that. But that’s not the way things played out.

“I think throughout all of it, he was true to himself and who he is. That’s all I will ever ask of any of our players is, be true, be yourself and we’ll help navigate any way we can.”

It was raw. And it could have been awkward. As the weekend progressed, Roberts denied that there would be any potential acrimony due to the lingering love Freeman expressed for his former club, saying if anyone had any issue with it, “that’s on them.”

“Our guys got to appreciate what authenticity was,” Roberts said this month. “As an athlete, it’s hard to be authentic. And there’s this alpha, tough man, tough guy complex. But to kind of show some vulnerability, I think that our guys are smart enough to realize that that’s a power of strength.”

But in speaking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the state of the still-budding rivalry between the Dodgers and Braves, Kershaw — the longest-tenured Dodger — noted the reception Freeman received from the Truist Park crowd for his ring ceremony, adding, “I hope we’re not second fiddle. It’s a pretty special team over here, too. I think whenever he gets comfortable over here, he’ll really enjoy it.”

The comments drew attention to a series already charged with emotion. As a national television broadcast seemingly peeled itself to shots of a wet-eyed Freeman, Kershaw’s quote was plastered onto the screen.

“I think I’d be the first to admit that I probably didn’t give him enough of a pass as I probably should,” Kershaw said last month, recalling those comments. “That was my fault that it even got out there like that.”

It opened the door for a conversation that Kershaw called “eye-opening.”

“Our relationship got a lot better after that (talk),” Kershaw said. “I think there were some unintended good consequences that came out of that. I didn’t mean for anything, any of that to happen. But I think it was great for me, and I hope for him too.”

Mookie Betts didn’t speak with Freddie Freeman in the first few days after the smiley new first baseman arrived at the Dodgers’ spring training complex.

Betts didn’t know what to say and wasn’t one to go out of his way to force a conversation. It’s been more than two years now since the former MVP right fielder arrived at the same complex for the first time, after a trade from Boston that had been whispered about all winter but hadn’t materialized until the week before camps opened. So when Betts reported in the spring of 2020, he didn’t say much for a few days.

Come Freeman’s third day in Dodgers camp this March, the two stood in silence as Cody Bellinger took hacks on one of the vast complex’s back fields. As Betts stepped into the cage, he looked over to Freeman.

“Bro,” Betts said, “I just went through the same situation. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

He knew it took time. For Betts, it took until last fall — more than a year, a World Series title and a COVID-19 shutdown’s worth of time in Los Angeles — to finally feel as if his feet were underneath him in his new home. The walls of his house were no longer bare, instead replaced with photos of the place where he’d signed a 12-year contract before even putting on a Dodger uniform in a regular-season game.

The next day, Freeman sat and spoke. Betts didn’t say much as the first baseman put his feelings into words.

“Sometimes you just need somebody,” Betts said. “I don’t know if he had anybody to talk to about it. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, I don’t know. I was just kind of there for him and listened.

“You could tell where his heart was, and you can’t fault him for it … You spend 12 years there, that’s one thing. But people loved him.”

The two men bonded over being somewhat of a hired gun, a growing trend as the Dodgers’ roster has evolved. The nucleus has been built up and established, with homegrown talents such as Will Smith and Julio Urías to go with entrenched voices like Justin Turner, Max Muncy and Chris Taylor. Turning some of the farm system into proven superstars, and acclimating them to the existing group, has turned into an annual occurrence.

Freeman was just the latest in what has become an annual challenge — taking a star who had established a rapport and routine elsewhere and seamlessly folding him into a room that has already accomplished a lot together.

“I think there’s a major part that can’t be sped up, which is connection with their teammates,” Friedman said. “That just takes time. I think that is the last chunk of it. That once they feel that true connection and camaraderie, I think is when they’re finally able to really exhale and view this as their team.”

Trea Turner said it took a matter of months after his July 2021 trade to adjust, saying, “this group in here is very accepting and very wanting of players to come in and feel good and feel like they belong here.”

Betts took a little longer than that. Now he and Freeman have clicked, two of the Dodger’s pillars signed for the foreseeable future forming a surprising bond at the top of the lineup. They’ve taken each other’s families on flights to team road trips. They’ve spent hours together in the batting cages, discussing hitting philosophies. During a recent road trip through San Diego, the two even made the drive from Los Angeles — with Freeman’s father driving.

“It’s been a 100th percentile outcome with how close they’ve become,” Friedman said.

Months after their brief first brush, Betts said Freeman has taught him more about himself.

“When it comes to not obsessing over being perfect and being so good and kind of letting – you’re working, obviously — but letting your abilities also take over,” Betts said, having ripped off a career-best 35 home runs this season, “that’s probably what I’ve learned the most from him.”

Freddie Freeman takes an extra base on a fielding error by the Rockies in July, the sort of heads-up play teammates say is typical of his game. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

Not long after the Dodgers returned from that pivotal trip through Cincinnati, Atlanta and Denver, several of the club’s stars decided to speak up during a hitters’ meeting.

Earlier that month, during a rare offensive dry spell, the group had reached something of a breaking point. They were on the verge of being swept in San Francisco. Walker Buehler, the club’s Opening Day starter, went down with an elbow issue that would end his season and require a second Tommy John surgery. As Roberts spoke to the media before that finale, he pressed an issue on his mind.

“People get caught up in their own individual paths, but the whole kind of focusing on just winning a game and whatever it takes to win that day, we got to get back to that mindset,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers had been winning. But the new-look lineup, even bolstered by Freeman, was struggling to appear whole. Several of the club’s established hitters, such as Justin Turner and Muncy, had run cold. Multiple scoring chances the Dodgers had generated in San Francisco left runners stranded on the basepaths.

While the accounts of the hitters’ meeting have varied, three of the Dodgers’ core players spoke. Justin Turner centered on the group remaining engaged. Betts pointed to the group’s reliance on iPads, spending much of their time in the dugout with their eyes peeled to the screens and overanalyzing their swings rather than focusing on “the little intricacies of baseball” and cheering their teammates. Freeman spoke, too, suggesting limiting the use of the tablets to two at a time and putting an emphasis on being on the top rail during their teammates’ at-bats.

“I don’t know if there was one thing in particular that resonated or sat, but things kind of took off from there,” Justin Turner said.

He compared Freeman’s injection of insight to Betts’ presence in spring training two years prior. In a now-famous speech, Betts addressed his new teammates and stressed the urgency needed from that group to win a title.

“Having that kind of outside perspective come in and have a new voice and a new kind of take on things, I think resonates well,” Turner said.

Trayce Thompson, who returned for his second tour with the Dodgers on the onset of that fateful road trip, compared the effect to that of a different former Dodgers teammate, former All-Star Chase Utley, whose four years at the tail end of his career in Los Angeles have continued to have a lasting impact.

“I feel like Chase’s spirit, the way he approached the game, that DNA is still in this clubhouse and this organization,” Thompson said. “This team wouldn’t be the same without him. He hasn’t played for a few years, but JT’s kind of carried his mantle and Freddie’s cut from that same cloth.”

Thompson is one of several who vouched for Freeman’s influence throughout the summer. Gavin Lux called Freeman “probably the biggest help out of anybody” in his breakout campaign, taking after some of Freeman’s daily drills into his own routine, as has prospect Miguel Vargas.

As the Dodgers wrapped up June and reshuffled the top of their lineup to have Betts lead off, Trea Turner hit second and Freeman bat third, the group took off and embodied the type of team-first offensive philosophy Roberts had called for. And Freeman’s game has flourished.

Kershaw has marveled at Freeman’s ability to marry “old school” ideas to the newer hitting philosophy. Friedman noted his first baseman’s aggressiveness on the basepaths, calling him “the Spalding guide” to how to do something. Ebel, a longtime coach with the Angels, compared Freeman’s work habits to future Hall of Famers Albert Pujols and Mike Trout. Other teammates gawked at Freeman’s unique ability to downshift his swing depending on the game state.

“He’s as good as I’ve ever seen,” Roberts said.

Freeman’s weekend in Atlanta, he said, was needed, more than he knew, regardless of the blowback that followed.

“If someone thought I was completely over the Braves two days later, then you’d think I’m a lunatic,” Freeman said. “I gave everything I possibly can (to them) for 15 years. I’m going to have emotions.”

But as he arrived in Denver and the sentiments settled, he wanted to make it clear. He was past it.

He was a Dodger.

“He didn’t have to,” Betts said of the text message Freeman sent, “but it was good that he did.”

Said Justin Turner: “I think probably it just was good more for him than anyone.”

“I think everything is kind of understood,” Lux said. “But that’s just kind of the guy he is.”

This is where Freeman is now, a year into a six-year relationship in Los Angeles that has already produced flashy results.

A matchup after the first-round bye presents the start of a gauntlet for Freeman in his quest to win his second title in as many seasons and as many cities. Even getting past a star-studded Padres squad could put him right back in the same spot that altered the Dodgers’ season.

A chance to return to Atlanta for the NLCS for a third consecutive matchup between these two sides remains a possibility. This summer’s chapter has already set the stage for compelling theater.

But for Freeman?

“It’s a series for us to win,” he said. “Wouldn’t mean anything to me. I’ve already been there, played there, got my closure.

“I’m a Dodger.”

(Top image: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Harry How / Getty Images; Katharine Lotze / Getty Images; Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)

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