Atlanta Braves: Wasting Freddie Freeman’s Prime Seasons With Rebuild
By Kit Anderson
The Atlanta Braves have found a rare face of the franchise player in Freddie Freeman. Freeman has taken over as the Braves most popular player since Chipper retired and Jason Heyward was traded. Freeman is a great player, a player whose prime is being wasted in Atlanta.
The Atlanta Braves rebuild has dragged on over what is going on three years now and the team may now look to go a different direction with the front office undergoing changes. While the rebuild has been going on Freddie Freeman has become one of the most quiet stars in baseball.
Freeman is quietly a star in the fact that outside of Braves’ country little attention is being paid to Freeman due to the fact no one is interested in listening to how a player is doing on a rebuilding team unless the team is their own, or they happened to draft said player in their fantasy league.
Freeman is in the middle of the prime of his career, a prime that is at risk of being wasted as the Braves continue to focus on youth.
Players like Freddie Freeman rarely come along for small market teams that are not willing to pay big money for them. When players like Freeman do pan out it is time to go all in and work on building a competing roster while Freeman is still in his prime.
The fact that the Braves seem uninterested in doing so has to be frustrating for Freeman and the handful of other players who have stuck around since the rebuild. It is time for the Braves to change strategies and focus on putting a contending team on the field around Freeman.
If the new leadership in the Braves front office prefers to continue rebuilding, as painful as it may be for Braves’ fans it might be time to consider sending Freeman elsewhere. To a team that could send the prospects that the Braves seem so enthralled with and sending Freeman to a team that could offer him a chance at the postseason.
The better decision would be to change the direction that this Braves franchise seems to be headed and build a team around Freeman. A team that can return to the Braves’ way including a trip back to the postseason.