Maybe that's the only offer Freeman saw, but it appears the Braves were willing to move, and Freeman's agents said fuck that.
Don't know if you have ESPN Insider, but:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/33536546/inside-yearlong-contract-saga-split-freddie-freeman-atlanta-braves. And I'll hit highlights of negotiations from the article, below:
Quote
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 (Chipper) 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...
"From my conversations with Freddie," Jones says, "he wanted to stay. I'm just not so sure the way that he and his camp handled it was the way to make it happen."
At last summer's trade deadline, the Braves finally moved in their negotiations with Freeman, offering him $125 million over five years, according to sources. The response from Freeman's camp remained consistent with what had been communicated before -- he would agree only to a deal that included a sixth year. In the weeks that followed, the Braves bumped their offer to $135 million over five years.
According to two league sources, the team was using Paul Goldschmidt's five-year, $130 million deal with the Cardinals as a comparable contract. At the time of Goldschmidt's contract with St. Louis in 2019, he was 31 years old, a little younger than Freeman, who turned 32 last September.
All that time, the Braves' five-year offer remained on the table, including through a prelockout November in which there was little communication between the team and Freeman's camp. Close maintained that Freeman needed a sixth year in any offer from the Braves, and he began talking to other clubs. Without a deal on Dec. 2, after the owners locked out the players, Anthopoulos and Close did not negotiate for the 99 days of the labor shutdown.
When the business of baseball resumed, the Braves reconnected with Freeman's representatives. Anthopoulos nudged Atlanta's offer upward, to $140 million over five years.
On Friday, March 11, there was a report that the Dodgers were making an intense push to sign Freeman. The next day, Close and Anthopoulos spoke, and, according to four sources, Close told Anthopoulos that the Braves had an hour to accept one of two proposals -- a six-year, $175 million deal, an average of a little more than $29 million a year, or a five-year, $165 million deal, an average of $33 million per season.
Anthopoulos rejected both of Excel's proposals. The two sides agreed on only this: All offers and proposals were off the table. Both sides needed to prepare for an Atlanta squad without Freddie Freeman.
Last November, at Close's request, New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone chatted with Freeman on a 30-minute Zoom call in the short free-agency period before the lockout. According to several AL sources, they came away impressed. That he was potentially a perfect fit for their lineup and ballpark was obvious: Manager Aaron Boone could break up the long string of right-handed hitters by placing Freeman between Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, and Freeman, as a left-handed hitter, could take advantage of Yankee Stadium's short right-field porch. But Cashman told Close that he just didn't see the budgetary space developing for the Yankees. With big money already committed to Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton, and with Aaron Judge's free agency looming, the Yankees were not comfortable committing to another nine-figure contract.
The message from the Boston Red Sox to Freeman's camp was that they really liked the player, but a deal in the range being discussed was not going to work; Boston has two young first basemen already, in Bobby Dalbec and top prospect Triston Casas.
The Toronto Blue Jays talked to Freeman's representatives, but they too had serious complications of redundancy; first base is the best possible position for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. In the end, their first aggressive infield move was a trade for third baseman Matt Chapman, who was Olson's teammate in Oakland.
The Tampa Bay Rays were very serious about Freeman, offering two deals, both of which met Freeman's length requirement: six for $140 million or seven for $150 million. According to one source, there was a sense that, if asked, the Rays would go up to $150 million for six years. That offer remained on the table and, as rival executives noted, may have been worth more than what Freeman will make in L.A. once state taxes are factored in.
IMO, it boiled down to going home to SoCal after his agents were unwilling to move with the Braves.
This post was edited by the_godfather01 on Mar 18 2022 06:20pm