Today, I am starting a new series for the offseason because I clearly don’t do enough offseason series (i.e. top prospects, player projections, free agency preview). This series will functionally be a season in review for each player, but I’m not going to bother with all the basic info. You watch the Angels, you know this stuff already. Instead, I’ll be looking back at some of the weird and/or unresolved issues from each player’s season. You know, “questioning” their season.
We kick the series off with one of the players that was questioned the most coming into the season, David Freese. Why? Because symmetry, that’s why.
Was Freese’s season actually good?
According to fWAR, Freese had a good season, finishing with a 2.1 WAR. That makes him a league average third baseman, which is a good thing, despite the somewhat negative connotation of average. However, according to a lot of Angels fans, Freese sucked a bag of dicks. I suspect they think this is because of how wretched Freese was in his first two months as an Angel but also because he wasn’t the superhero that his World Series highlights suggest he is.
The truth of the matter is that Freese was actually a mild disappointment overall. His 106 wRC+ was the second-worst mark of his career, which isn’t as long as it feels like. But if you look at how Freese rebounded after his early struggles, well he was just fine. He closed out the second half of his season with a 115 wRC+ and even flashed some power (.161 ISO in the second half) that he hadn’t shown since his outlier (which everyone insists on treating like his normal season) 2012 season.
But why did he stink so much to start the year?
Good question, glad I asked it. I just wish I had a more concrete answer. What I do have is two theories. The first is that he wasn’t completely healthy. His 2013 season was ruined by persistent back problems. Swinging a bat with a bad back is really hard, as it turns out. If he hadn’t fully healed, it could have still troubled him. I don’t know if you buy that, but it does strike me as awfully convenient that Freese started hitting after getting three weeks of rest for a finger injury. He also was moved to the bench or DH for a few days at a time throughout the season due to tightness in his back, so it obviously was at least a little bit of a factor.
My second theory is Anaheimnesia. Freese, who has spoken openly about how hard it was to cope with the expectations of being a hometown hero in St. Louis, quite simply could have tried to hard. We’ve seen it before from former Cardinals in their first two months as an Angel. Between the pressure of impressing a new team and adjusting to a new league, Freese got himself into some bad habits and began swinging more and taking fewer pitches. That’s usually a bad idea, something which another former Cardinal who came to the Angels still hasn’t quite figured out.
So is he fixed?
I’m going with a hard “maybe.” Glad I could clear that up for you. The reason I am hesitant to say yes is that Freese still struggled a bit with plate discipline even during his second half surge. His walk rate, which is a huge part of his offensive value, was just 6.0% in the second half and his strikeout rate was 21.3%, which is still above his career rate entering the season. That could just be an arbitrary end point issue, but it more than likely is a side effect of him switching league and getting older. Despite Freese only having five season under his belt, he’s going to be turning 32 not long after Opening Day. Guys in their thirties with wonky bats don’t age well.
Should the Angels non-tender Freese?
No, and really that’s kind of a silly notion. I know that I said he isn’t likely to age well, but the Halos are only committing to him for one more season. He should still be worth his salary unless he completely falls off a cliff, which isn’t likely.
Even if you aren’t impressed with what Freese provided, he’s still good enough to be a starter and earn the approximately $7 million he’ll receive in arbitration. That is roughly valuing him a 1.5 win player. He’s been worth 10.1 in his five-year career. If the Angels non-tender him, he’s going to get a lot more than $7 million.
Trading him, however, could at least be on the table. I’ll get into this whole debate later in a lengthier post, but with fallback options of Gordon Beckham and Grant Green, the Angels could save some money by flipping Freese for some cheap, young talent. They’d be taking a big risk of turning back to the dark days of replacement level performance at third base though. Freese may not be an All-Star, but he’s a solid and (mostly) reliable player.
Final Answer
Freese didn’t give the Angels 162 games of his World Series hero self. Get over it. He turned a fine a season and should be about as good next season, maybe even a little better if he gets lucky. Even if he gets a little worse, he should be good enough to hold down the hot corner for another year so that the Halos can find a suitable long-term replacement.
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