Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman needs plenty of space to store his awards. He’s coming off a season in which he won National League MVP, the Hank Aaron Award and other honors. It was one of the great individual seasons in Braves history.
Yet Freeman is missing one notable achievement on his resume.
Hall of Famer and Braves coach Chipper Jones provided a reminder of that Tuesday, according to Freeman. Jones, one of the franchise’s biggest icons, was the team’s most recent MVP (1999) until Freeman last season. But Jones also was part of the Braves’ most recent world championship, in 1995.
These Braves have won the NL East three consecutive seasons, but they haven’t been the last team standing in October. They came closer than the organization had in two decades last postseason, but ultimately fell to the eventual champion Dodgers in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series.
The individual awards are nice, but Freeman, entering his 12th season with the Braves, is one piece of jewelry short.
“I was talking to Chipper today, and he said, ‘You’ve got every award now, but you’re still missing one thing,’” Freeman said. “I said, ‘Yep. I know it. And I’m coming for it.’ We’re getting closer and closer. We have the right team, the right personnel, the right coaching staff and the right front office. We’re set up perfectly to achieve goals here. I can probably match Chipper in pretty much everything here and get that World Series ring. ... The awards don’t change anything. I have one goal and that’s to win the World Series.”
The 2021 Braves might offer Freeman’s best chance to date. They return the core of the 2020 team along with more internal growth and veteran rotation upgrades. If the Braves finally break through this postseason, Freeman undoubtedly will be at the center of it all. And his legacy would change forever because of it.
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