After bumpy start off, Freddie Freeman ultimately feels at property with Dodgers

There are some days Freddie Freeman’s commute is basic.

He’ll take the 405 Freeway to the 110 Freeway, cruise into the significantly-still left speedy-observe lane and get there at Dodger Stadium from his property in Orange County in effectively underneath an hour.

Then there are times like Monday.

“I started out on the 73,” Freeman claimed. “Then, I went to the 405, I went to the 605, to the 105, to the 710, to the 5, to the 101.”

He stopped for a breath, and a chuckle.

“Today was each freeway you could perhaps consider,” he explained. “But I basically did it all ideal. It was only like an hour, 10 minutes now, which is fine.”

For Freeman, it is been perhaps the ideal and worst part of his transition back again to Los Angeles this 12 months, in his very first year with the Dodgers soon after his beautiful six-12 months, $162-million signing as a cost-free agent this spring.

The worst for the reason that, very well, it’s Southland website traffic.

“It’s difficult to just see wherever I want to go,” he quipped, “and not shift.”

But the ideal mainly because, no make any difference how inconvenient the travel, it finishes at a ballpark and with an corporation in which the 1st baseman now feels he belongs.

“I’m just happy it was a fit,” Freeman explained. “That’s what you want. You just want a in good shape.”

On the field, Freeman was a normal addition to the Dodgers lineup from the start.

He batted a group-very best .325, the maximum by a Dodgers participant because Hanley Ramirez in 2013. He matched Trea Turner with a crew-major 100 RBIs, the very first time the Dodgers had two gamers push in that lots of given that Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp in 2009. And he turned the most constant threat for a team that led the majors in scoring and recorded a franchise-file 111 wins.

But off the subject, it wasn’t always simple.

Just after expending his complete qualified career with the Atlanta Braves, his adjustment to everyday living with the Dodgers was not quick.

Just after an offseason that unfolded much in another way than he at any time expected, the shock of leaving Atlanta adopted him to Los Angeles.

Seven months later, although, from the dwelling dugout of his new residence ballpark, Freeman looked back on the time with a smile planted on his experience.

“I was just thankful these guys knew I was heading by means of all those emotions,” he reported. “No make a difference what I was heading through, they were being here for me.”

It wasn’t a standard homecoming, even for a participant with Southern California roots.

Freeman grew up in Orange County, not Los Angeles.

He was a childhood admirer of the Angels, not the Dodgers.

Most of all, by the time he arrived at no cost company this winter season, he felt as substantially at residence in Atlanta as he did on the West Coastline, hopeful that soon after 15 a long time in the Braves corporation, he would complete out his job with the club that originally drafted him out of El Modena Substantial in Orange back in 2007.

Negotiations as an alternative fell apart.

Freeman rejected a pair agreement features from the Braves last August. His brokers at Excel Sporting activities Administration had two counterproposals turned down adhering to the stop of the MLB lockout in March.

Then, amid clear miscommunication in between the Braves, Freeman and his agents at Excel, the initial baseman was “blindsided” by the Braves’ trade for his de facto substitution, Matt Olson, on March 14.

Freeman, who later on fired his brokers at Excel, declined to comment on various reviews about the negotiations that surfaced in the aftermath — such as regardless of whether Excel’s closing March offers ended up introduced as ultimatums, or if he was anticipating the Braves had made any very last-ditch counterproposal right before the Olson trade (in a libel lawsuit submitted in July by Excel against radio temperament Doug Gottlieb, the company claimed the team’s rejected proposals in August have been the remaining official provides extended by the Braves).

3 times immediately after the Olson trade, Freeman signed with the Dodgers. Later on that week, fans chanted his identify as he was publicly launched at Camelback Ranch.

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, remaining, announces the arrival of Freddie Freeman on March 18 in Phoenix.

(Charlie Riedel / Involved Push)

Outwardly, he place on a smile and claimed he’d moved on from his shock divorce with the Braves.

But deep down, he conceded this week, he however felt a wave of emotions in its wake.

“It was a hard couple months at the commencing,” he reported. “You had to go by way of all those emotions.”

And it all arrived to a head when he returned to Atlanta in late June.

For a lot of that weekend, Freeman was in tears. He obtained choked up at rousing ovations from his previous residence crowd. He was red-eyed when introduced his 2021 Environment Sequence ring by his aged manager Brian Snitker. He even broke down during a news convention with the Atlanta push.

He had anticipated it to be an psychological reunion. But even he was amazed about how raw it all felt, at how many unresolved emotions that came gushing to the forefront.

“I mentioned at that press conference [in Atlanta] that I was not genuinely searching for closure,” he recalled this week.

The moment it was in excess of, nevertheless, “that’s when the two-ton boulder came off my shoulder,” he said, adding: “That’s when I understood my toes ended up in the floor, that I had bought everything settled.”

The textual content was part thank-you, section apology, portion promise.

The day after the Dodgers left Atlanta, Freeman despatched a concept in a roster-vast group chat, thanking his new teammates for “bearing with me as I go by way of all this” and “letting me go as a result of what I essential to go by.”

“It was just a way of indicating, I’m right here,” Freeman additional. “I know I’ve been likely up and down, weaving, making an attempt to figure it all out. But I’m present and ready to roll.”

Dodgers initially baseman Freddie Freeman gets his World Collection championship ring from Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker just before a activity on June 24 in Atlanta.

(Butch Dill / Involved Press)

Freeman’s early-time thoughts hadn’t absent unnoticed in the Dodgers clubhouse.

No gamers had been publicly vital. Supervisor Dave Roberts emphatically denied Freeman’s tearful return to Atlanta was a distraction to the workforce. Freeman’s performance wasn’t suffering, both, with the still left-handed slugger batting above .300 all through the season’s 1st three months.

Still, there was a subtle awkwardness to his begin in Los Angeles, as well.

Broadly circulated opinions from pitcher Clayton Kershaw, in which the club’s longest-tenured participant instructed Freeman may not have been comfy with the Dodgers still and hoped they weren’t “second fiddle” to the Braves, appeared to hint at a peaceful disconnect.

Roberts also felt the first baseman was not totally settled, stating this 7 days that “leading up to that point, there were being a large amount of issues, stress and anxiety, disappointment, a good deal of unresolved feelings — and understandably so.”

In retrospect, Freeman acknowledged his difficulties early in the transition, also.

“I knew that I was navigating so considerably stuff,” he reported. “I would sit at my locker and just zone out, and the subsequent matter you know, it was an hour afterwards, and I hadn’t talked to any one.”

Soon after the Atlanta series, nonetheless, matters started off to adjust.

He started to open up wholly to his new crew.

“Tyler Anderson jokes that I became a Dodger soon after that series,” Freeman said with a giggle.

The exact same day Freeman sent the team text, he and Kershaw also spoke individually, clearing the air times right after the pitcher’s “second fiddle” quotation went viral.

President of baseball functions Andrew Friedman even obtained a contact from the very first baseman, who preferred to say he was “sorry it took 3 months” to thoroughly go earlier his departure from the Braves.

“Sorry for 3 months?” Freeman recalled Friedman telling him. “I thought it was gonna take you a year. You never just get in excess of that.”

Then, Freeman built his new manager a assure.

“I’m very good,” he claimed. “Let’s acquire off.”

As the Dodgers hit their stride during the second 50 percent of the year, profitable 65 of their closing 88 video games pursuing the highway trip that integrated the Atlanta sequence, anyone from Friedman to Roberts to Justin Turner and Mookie Betts agreed this year’s Dodgers workforce was one particular of the closest and most communicative of any they’ve experienced in current memory.

When hitting coach Brant Brown was requested about the phenomenon very last month, he stopped a reporter mid-dilemma.

“You imply the Freddie effect?”

In fact, as Freeman elevated his game down the stretch — he batted .341 in excess of those remaining 85 game titles, by considerably the best mark of any hitter in the majors — his affect in the clubhouse also grew.

To younger hitters, primarily fellow still left-handed types this sort of as Gavin Lux, Freeman turned a mentor, imparting wisdom in hitters conferences each time he talked about his prepare of attack in opposition to particular pitchers.

“It’s appealing to see,” Lux claimed. “He may have a totally different strategy than I do … So it is neat to variety of pick and pick out and see what you like.”

Dodgers initially baseman Freddie Freeman (5) catches a pop-up strike by the San Francisco Giants’ Wilmer Flores in front of 2nd baseman Gavin Lux, remaining, and proper fielder Mookie Betts for the duration of the seventh inning in San Francisco on Sept. 17.

(Jeff Chiu / Affiliated Push)

Freeman grew tighter with other superstars on the staff more than the calendar year, also, forming an specially near bond with Betts — who credited Freeman, along with shortstop Trea Turner, with assisting him establish a far more aggressive method at the plate this yr.

“They’re definitely my backbones and who I chat to,” Betts said.

Brown credited Freeman with setting an example with his strategy at the plate, particularly in leverage conditions.

“He does his research and appreciates each and every at-bat and every pitch is significant,” Brown claimed. “He competes when he doesn’t experience fantastic, usually takes hits when it is required. All the points that very good groups do.”

All through the club’s final homestand this 7 days, Freeman was named the club’s Roy Campanella Award winner, an honor provided to the “most inspirational Dodger” that is voted on by players and coaches.

“I assume we all have seen a diverse Freddie,” Roberts mentioned. “More openness. Additional jovial. The body weight of the planet is no more time on his shoulder.”

After the remaining video game of the standard year, that natural ease and comfort was at the time once again on show.

As he waited for a horde of media associates to complete a scrum with Trea Turner, whose locker is up coming to Freeman’s in the again corner of the Dodgers’ clubhouse, Freeman joked for the shortstop to hurry, realizing the extended commute that awaited him at 5 o’clock on a weekday.

When it was his flip to tackle reporters, Freeman laughed off narrowly missing the batting title, soon after coming up a single strike brief of beating the New York Mets’ Jeff McNeil for the award.

He deemed his typical-season general performance as a accomplishment, possessing completed his yearly plans of batting .300, submitting a .900 OPS and reaching both of those 100 runs scored and driven in.

And then, he looked ahead to the postseason route lying ahead, delighted that following an normally emotional but finally satisfying 1st year with the Dodgers, his debut year in Los Angeles was not done still.

“They ended up bumpers as I was receiving to this close point,” Freeman mentioned of his new teammates, coaches and colleagues with the Dodgers, using his fingers to mimic the aspect guards of a bowling alley. “There ended up a lot of bumpers here. That is what I necessary.”