I agree that Braves farm products shouldn't hold any special value just because we developed them. We need good players regardless of who signed or drafted them.
Now this may change a bit if we are hitting a salary bubble but extensions for young guys like Albies and Acuna usually work out in favor of the team. Even if you sign them to market value deals in their FA years that value is almost always going to be less now than it would be if you signed a market value player for that spot 5-6 years from now. Freeman is a good example of this.
It's interesting.
Freddie would have been a free agent before last season.
So we bought at some cost to his control seasons perhaps:
2017 20.5m
2018 21 m
2019 21m
2020 22 m
2021 22m
So he essentially got 5/106.5, plus the 2.875 singing bonus.
......
The closest comps to market value when he hit free agency would seem to be:
Eric Hosmer 5 years at 21 per with three years guaranteed at 13m behind a player option
Chris Davis 7 years at 23 million.
Hosmer was coming off a 4 WAR season. Davis was coming off a 6 WAR season.
I think Freeman probably would have been considered clearly better than Hosmer when he signed. I think he's clearly better than Chris Davis, but given the season Davis was coming off that might be close? I'm not sure Freddie gets more than 25 AAV.
But one thing is certain, you have to feel good about not guaranteeing 39m for non-prime years or owing Chris Davis 23m per through his age 26.
This deal has worked out.
It suggests a second pretty good value in extensions --- the ability to get prime years at market value without paying for post-prime performance.
I don't like the player the Padres got in Hosmer or their timing or the fit for their club, but the structure of the deal is maybe about as good as they could do. At least they've limited their post prime damage to 13m per year, which would be easier to totally write off, or could be a less than horrific obligation to a diminished player. Course Hosmer has been totally awful in year one, so oops.