Could you imagined if the Braves, Freddie Freeman saga ended like this?

Going on five years removed from the Freddie Freeman saga, it’s looking increasingly likely to become one of those rare superstar swaps where both sides come out completely satisfied.

Freeman has helped propel the Dodgers to two straight World Series titles, winning World Series MVP in one of them. It’s been nauseating to watch from afar as a Braves fan — but it feels like the script is about to flip in a big way over the second half of Matt Olson‘s contract.

Olson has not had a subpar season in Atlanta. Not once. He’s played in every game, earned a top-five finish in the NL MVP race, broke the franchise record for home runs, and is on his way to his third All-Star Game as a Brave. You could make an argument that Freeman has been the slightly better player up to this point — but now the age factor is starting to kick in.

Olson just turned 32, smack dab in his prime, with four years left on his contract. Freeman is pushing 37, beginning to show signs of decline, and will be a free agent after next season. This is where Olson starts making up ground — and then some — which could have Alex Anthopoulos looking like a genius when it’s all said and done.

But did you know Olson to Atlanta almost never happened?

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Braves’ first call when they felt Freeman was slipping away was to Anthony Rizzo.

“The previously unreported twist is this: Once the Braves believed they were out on Freeman during the post-lockout free-agent frenzy in March 2022, they tried to sign another first baseman before acquiring Olson from the then-Oakland Athletics,” Rosenthal wrote for The Athletic.

“That first baseman, according to people familiar with both the team’s and player’s discussions, was Anthony Rizzo. The parties did not get close to a deal. The Braves, who do not give players opt-outs, declined to offer Rizzo the kind of contract he received from the New York Yankees — two years, $32 million, with an opt-out after the first year. The team’s preference, according to a person close to Rizzo, was to sign him for one year.”

The Braves then pivoted to Matt Olson, avoiding what could have been one of the biggest disaster points in franchise history. Rizzo is no longer even in the league, and over his three seasons following the Braves’ failed pursuit, he averaged just 1.0 WAR per season with the Yankees.

The Freeman-Olson saga has been a non-stop conversation since Atlanta pulled the trigger on that trade with the A’s — and a heated one at times, with fans firmly planted on both sides and neither budging an inch.

But the further we get from it and the more we look at the full picture, the clearer it becomes: the Braves have essentially gone two decades with a Hall of Famer at first base. And when you put it like that, it’s hard to say they lost out on anything at the end of the day.

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(Photo by John Adams/Icon Sportswire)