To Freddie Freeman, two years ago was “100 times worse.”
And if he could find his swing then, he is confident of doing so again now.
Freeman’s 2024 postseason, of course, has become club legend at this point. How he played through ankle and rib injuries. How he slumped through the first couple rounds in his severely diminished state. And how, after a week off before that year’s Fall Classic, he tweaked his swing and produced one of the most memorable performances in World Series history — highlighted by his iconic walk-off grand slam in extra innings of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium.
This time, Freeman thinks a similar turnaround could be much more simple, despite battling another physical ailment down the stretch this regular season with patellar tendonitis in his right knee.
“I truly feel good right now, physically,” Freeman said on Tuesday, during a video conference with reporters ahead of the Dodgers’ first pre-National League Division Series bye week workout. “So it’s on me now to figure out the mechanics of the swing in the next five days. And I have all the confidence in myself that I will figure that out by [Game 1 on] Saturday.”
At the start of September, Freeman looked to be on the right track.
The former MVP was sporting a .300 batting average, accomplishing his primary preseason goal. He had looked more mobile at first base for much of the year, a byproduct of consistent health in his age-36 campaign. And though he was mired in a power drought, going 47 games between home runs at one point, he had nonetheless remained a key contributor in the heart of the Dodgers’ star-studded batting order.
Then, just as the stretch run started to heat up, Freeman’s right knee suddenly began to hurt.
There was no one play that caused the veteran slugger’s injury (at least not that he has pinpointed publicly). He tried to downplay the severity of the issue, despite missing a handful of games during the middle of the month.
But it nonetheless triggered a slump that put Freeman’s postseason productivity into question, making him perhaps the club’s biggest question mark after a similarly banged-up Shohei Ohtani.
“[The injury is] affecting him,” manager Dave Roberts said last week. “So how can he sort of navigate being compromised?”
For much of September, Freeman struggled to find an answer.
On Sept. 2, he snapped his long-ball drought in a two-hit performance that raised his season-high average to .306 and his OPS to .850. After that, he spiraled into a three-week slump for the remainder of the regular season, going 12-for-72 (.167) over his final 18 games.
His final full-season numbers: a .288 average (his second-lowest mark since 2015), a .792 OPS (the lowest of his career excluding his 20-game cameo as a rookie in 2010) and just 16 home runs (another career low for a full-length season).
Freeman tried to tweak his swing a few times during that stretch, at one point focusing on catching the ball farther out in front in search of more pull power.
The one thing he did not do, however, was put the blame entirely on his latest physical problem.
“I’m not going to make an excuse. I will never blame my knee,” he insisted after Sunday’s regular-season finale. “I didn’t play very well, and that’s just how it is. It’s on me now in the next five days to figure out my swing and be prepared for Saturday.”
By Tuesday, Freeman sounded optimistic about that mission.
He reiterated that “my body feels good” and maintained his stance that “I just didn’t play well the last couple months of the season.”
“Did I have some ailments in my knees? Yes, I did,” he said. “I don’t know how much that attributed to subconsciously trying to do stuff where it didn’t hurt as much … so maybe I created bad habits. But I won’t blame it on that. I just played bad. My knee is in a good spot now. That’s why the bye week is huge.”
Indeed, Freeman has a specific plan for the next couple days — not only in how many swings he will take (which could be upward of 400 between the batting cages, on-field batting practice and live BP sessions, he said) but also in how he will go about recalibrating his mechanics.
“I’m gonna try what I used in the World Series in ’24,” Freeman said, referencing a “step-out” mental cue that impacts how he plants his front foot and is intended to prevent him from cutting his swing across the plate.
“That’s the thought going in today, and I’m very confident that that’s gonna help get things back in line throughout the course of the week.”
It certainly worked two years ago, when a clearly hampered Freeman went 7-for-32 before the Fall Classic, then emerged from his off-week reset by going 6-for-20 with four home runs in the World Series to earn MVP honors.
And the fact that Freeman already claims to feel significantly better physically has fueled optimism around the team that the worst of his struggles are behind him.
“I think that it is a mechanical thing with Freddie,” Roberts said, “and I do think that having five days to work through it gets him back to close to 100% — which I think he will be.”
The Dodgers could obviously use that version of the 10-time All-Star. If he and Ohtani (who the Dodgers also continue to insist is improving from his right arm and left knee injuries) are struggling at the top of their lineup, it could scuttle the team’s recently resurgent offense.
“Personally, it’s huge for me that I got five days to really work on mechanics,” Freeman said.
It paid off two Octobers ago. He’s counting on a similar rebound this year.
