Never forget Yankees paved Dodgers' Freddie Freeman path for ridiculous reason

Although he's turned himself into a Dodgers legend during this year's World Series, Freddie Freeman didn't exactly take the easy road to LA. The Dodgers really only got him because of some incredible malpractice on the part of the part of his former agent Casey Close. Freeman wanted to stay in Atlanta and made it very clear that he wanted to stay in Atlanta, but the Braves switched gears and signed Matt Olson as their first baseman after Freeman's camp repeatedly turned down offers without informing their client.

He signed with the Dodgers not long after, two weeks into spring training of 2022.

He's seemingly made peace with his tumultuous breakup with the Braves, and has moved on to become a World Series scourge for LA.

But he could've been playing for the Yankees, the team he's currently bullying. Early into his free agency, he had a productive Zoom call with New York GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone, who wanted to put a lefty bat between Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.

However, with Judge also a free agent and the Yankees prepared to cut him a blank check, they decided that they couldn't give Freeman the kind of money he wanted, and instead decided to re-sign Anthony Rizzo, who they'd acquired from the Cubs at the trade deadline.

In another life, Yankees bully Freddie Freeman could've been wearing pinstripes

Now, according to a Jon Heyman column from between Games 3 and 4, the reason Freeman and the Yankees couldn't come to an agreement was quite simple: “He didn’t want to come here,” a Yankees official said. “He wanted to stay in Atlanta, and if he couldn’t stay in Atlanta, he wanted to go to LA.”

Still, though. The Yankees were clearly uncomfortable on the financial plane it would've required. The Dodgers never are.

Rizzo's been having a bad go of things with the Yankees since they re-signed him, while Freeman has continued to play at a Hall of Fame pace for the Dodgers. The Game 1 walk-off recalled Kirk Gibson and gave the Dodgers the early lead in the series, the Game 2 homer added insurance after a Teoscar Hernández two-run shot, and the Game 3 homer gave him a five-game homer streak in the World Series. Finally, the Game 4 homer set a new MLB record.

The Yankees have a lot of reasons to kick themselves right now — namely, allowing the Dodgers to take such a commanding lead in the first World Series the Bombers have seen since 2009 — but letting go of Freeman only to go with a guy who has been banged up and ineffective since 2023 is probably one of those reasons as well.