From a roster-building standpoint, replacing Freddie Freeman with Matt Olson makes perfect sense.
It was the way things unfolded publicly that was a little weird.
The Atlanta Braves were unable to reach a deal on a new contract with Freeman earlier this month, and the franchise cornerstone ended up leaving for the Dodgers. But before Freeman reached a deal in Los Angeles, the Braves had swung a trade for Olson.
Given Freeman’s reaction to the Olson trade and the order in which the events occurred, it seemed like the Braves pulled the rug from beneath Freeman and implicitly told him he was gone.
But Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos outlined the timeline of events during an appearance Tuesday on 92.9 The Game’s "Dukes and Bell" in Atlanta. His version of things suggests it was clear the door was closed by the time they traded for Olson.
"The best I can tell you is Saturday night it was clear in our minds that we were going to go another direction," Anthopoulos said. "We did what we felt was our best, and Saturday night it was clear we were going to be going in some other direction. We didn’t know what that direction was yet and we only really started on that direction aggressively where we were ready to go (Sunday). We only got a proposal from Oakland, a firm ‘Hey, if you do this it’s done on Monday,’ I’d say late morning, early afternoon. But Sunday night is when I called Oakland late and said ‘Can you give me something that if I say yes it will be a deal.’”
The trade for Olson was finalized Monday.
So, Anthopoulos’ timeline indicated that talks fell apart once and for all Saturday, he had something in the hip pocket for Olson and decided late Sunday to aggressively pursue that.
All that timining makes sense, but the likely rebuttal from the Freeman camp would be that they didn’t think the door was closed Saturday night. Clearly, Anthopoulos and the Braves believed it was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was mutual. If they didn't express that clearly to Freeman, then you could understand why there would be some frustration on his side.
Either way, the Braves got a younger and perfectly suitable Freeman replacement, while Freeman himself gets to go back home.
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