MLB WORLD SERIES: ASTROS VS BRAVES

October 25, 2021

Freddie Freeman

Minute Maid Park

Atlanta Braves

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Congratulations. I'll ask you a real cliche question. What does feel like to be in your first World Series? I'm assuming this has been a dream.

FREDDIE FREEMAN: This is what you dream about as a kid, getting to the World Series. I think it hasn't completely hit me yet. When I walk out on the field and see "World Series" painted onto that field, I think it's going to be pretty cool, pretty surreal.

Right now it's kind of a whirlwind because we're doing the pregame stuff right now, so I haven't really settled yet.

Q. What do you know about the Astros and their abilities to win these type of games?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, this is their third World Series in the last five or six years. They've gotten here a lot of times. But I think right now it's just two good teams going at it right now.

We've been hot for a long time, so hopefully we can carry that into this World Series.

Q. How did you find yourself spending the World Series, say, the last four or five years?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Usually I'm trying to not watch the games, and then I start watching them, and then I watch every single one of them every single second because I want to be there.

The last few years, it's been playing with Charlie all day and getting ready to go to California. I'll take this. I've got Charlie here, but I'm not getting ready for California. So this is a lot better.

Q. Years ago, you fought really hard for Brian Snitker to remain the manager. I've seen some pretty good hugs during the celebration. What does it mean for you to be here with him now?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: It means a lot. Everyone that's in this room that's in the Atlanta area knows how special that man is and how hard he's worked in his life to just get to this point. For him to be able to be here in this situation, I watched him get off the bus today when we get here for the workout, and it was the coolest thing ever watching Brian Snitker walk into a World Series workout day.

So it's special. Hopefully, we can get this ring for him.

Q. A non-baseball question for you. You brought up Charlie. He continues to be the best dressed kid probably in America. We just saw him today. Can you talk about how he kind of steals the show sometimes?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, that's all my wife. She picks out the outfits. She does everything. I just try to get him dressed and get him out the door because it takes him a while in the mornings.

He's just a good kid, a really good kid. He'd better be doing his home school right now so he can come to the games.

Q. You said you tried the last few years not to watch. What was the reason that you wanted to not watch?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Because when you make the postseason, and you lose, you failed. It's the last thing -- you spend seven months trying to get somewhere and ultimately you don't make it. So it's kind of hard. Then you're a baseball fan, and I'm a fan of baseball, so I like watching games because I know there's not going to be any games after the World Series.

I'd rather be here and not watching it on TV. This is pretty cool. But when you're in that situation, it's tough. You lose. Unfortunately, I've lost the first 11 years. I finally made it here, so might as well win this thing.

Q. What does infield defense and the improvements the team has seen there this year? It seemed like you kind of all made an adjustment in season with positioning and how much you were using the shift. Can you share anything about that?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: We weren't a big shifting team, I think, at the beginning of the year. Me being at first, I don't really shift that much. I go to the line, or I stay in the hole pretty much. I know there's a point in time where it felt like we were getting beat a lot and just grounders going through areas that we could have covered.

So I know Wash and a lot of our analytical people met with Dansby and Ozzie, and I think it started around like May-ish, May, June we started shifting a whole lot more, more with Austin going into the outfield and right field.

Those are adjustments you've got to make. We haven't been a big shifting team the last couple years, but we started doing it a lot more, and I think it paid off big time.

Q. I know before when you either personally or for the team hit certain milestones throughout the season, you waited for the end to think about it. How do you balance this now, taking this in, realizing what's going on, and also getting prepared?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: It's hard. You try to live in the moment. We've been preaching in our hitters' meetings the last couple weeks, the moments, try to turn them into incredible memories, and we've been able to do that the last couple weeks.

So this is a moment, and we've still got a few things to make to turn it into incredible memories. That's what you wait on. Everyone's excited we got here. It's been a long time for the Braves organization to get here, but we know we've got four more wins to go, and it's pretty easy to balance that when you know what's at the end of the tunnel.

Q. Freddie, what Tyler Maztek has gone through, and also what Minter has gone through? Two years he got sent down to AAA. To now see him pitching at the top of his game, how big have those guys been for you so far?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: I don't know if we're sitting here doing interviews without Tyler Maztek and A.J. Minter, Will Smith, Luke Jackson. What they've done this season, everyone got their roles, and they took off and ran with it.

When Tyler Maztek got out of that game, that inning two days ago, absolutely incredible. I was thinking when he was running in, when it's 4-2, no outs, second and third, if we could somehow squeak out -- if we're only up by one, that's huge. If we're tied, I think everyone would take that. All of a sudden, we're going in the dugout up by two.

It's really hard to even put into words how unbelievable that moment for our team, but more for him and what he's been through.

He might remind you, I'm his first strikeout in Big Leagues. I've heard it now for two years how happy he is about that. His confidence level has gone through the roof, and it's -- he's got such a special arm. Left-handed arms like that don't come around often. I've been telling you guys that about Max Fried for so long.

Then A.J. Minter, what he did in Game 3 last year in NLCS, you knew it was there. For him to go up and down and come back up this year at the end and do what he did for us and to put us in this situation and be able to win a World Series, you and I aren't sitting here talking about that if it wasn't for those guys.

Q. What's it been like having sort of the Charlie Morton experience this year? He left a real big impact in Houston. Just curious what he's meant to you guys and what he brought to the team.

FREDDIE FREEMAN: He makes a big impact everywhere he goes. Special person. If you have a 14-pronged fork, he's been on every single road, and it took him a little bit longer than I'm sure he wanted to figure out the success, but when he got here, he figured it out. He's taken that and run with it. He's become, in my opinion, the best big game pitcher there is in this sport, and we've got him going Game 1. That's huge for us.

I'm sure Max will probably go in Game 2. So when you can fire those two guys out, you're feeling pretty comfortable and confident about yourselves going into Game 1 with Charlie Morton on the mound.

Q. Freddie, you mentioned a minute ago Wash and how he had an impact on the infielders. Just talk about what he does with those young infielders, the guys at second, short, and third. Obviously you might not work with him as much, but what he does with those guys, his enthusiasm as a third base coach and a guy who got within a strike of the World Series as a manager ten years ago.

FREDDIE FREEMAN: I'm right there with him every single day. We all do the same drills every single day, and that's a testament to him because, when you do something every day, it can get kind of boring, but when you go out there with Ron Washington, it becomes fun and exciting. That's what he makes work feel like. It makes you want to work.

When you know he's 69 years old, out there all day, working harder than almost all of us, you want to be out there. He means a whole lot to this team, this organization, and to get him back to this chance to win a World Series, I think we're all -- there's a lot of us and a lot of coaches in that room that to win a World Series for them, it would be huge for this and for us to do that for them.

Q. You talked last week about Atlanta sports history and wanting to try to kill some of the narrative there.

FREDDIE FREEMAN: You guys talked about that. We didn't (laughter).

Q. I'm curious, as someone who grew up on the other side of the country, just how long did it take to feel a connection to the city like that and the things that just kind of made it a second home for you?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, it does take a while because I didn't live full-time in Atlanta. I just come in and play and then go home in the off-season. So I started living full-time in Atlanta in 2012, I think.

So you start spending six, seven, eight months in the city, you start getting connected, you start going to some Hawks games. Back then the Thrashers were still there, so go to some hockey games. You just start building that connection.

Next thing you know, you have a son born in Atlanta, and things are just -- you just become part of the city. I've been there a long time, and you start caring about other teams, other sports, and the people in that city and that state of Georgia.

So I care a lot. I did watch the Super Bowl. I watched all that kind of stuff. It would only be right to be brought up when we had what we had to deal with last year. So I'm glad we were able to get past that point. This city means a lot. So hopefully, we can bring a championship home to them.

Q. Your primary four outfielders right now were not even with the team until late July. Can you describe their quick assimilation into this club?

FREDDIE FREEMAN: Yeah, it's pretty amazing actually that we're sitting here and you guys aren't talking about an MVP winner potentially in Ronald Acuna Jr. It's pretty amazing we made it without that man and without Mike Soroka. We've got a whole different team pretty much in the outfield.

We probably would have won more than 88 games if we had Adam Duvall on our team earlier in the year. He seemed to beat us quite a few times with the Marlins. We all knew Adam and what he brought to us. That was a big loss for us when he got hurt in the playoffs last year.

Eddie, when he came over, he was hurt. So we didn't get to see him for like a month, and then Jorge came over. We were just trying to figure out how all this worked. Joc was there. All of a sudden Joc wasn't playing every day. We were just trying to figure out how all these pieces fit on our team.

Next thing you know, about a month in, the pieces started fitting, and we started rolling as a group. To have a whole new outfield that you did in April than you did at the end of July, it's hard to do. What Alex did in the front office when we dealt with what we dealt with this year, it's pretty amazing that we tried to cover four guys to pick up Ronald's performance, and I think we were able to accomplish that, even though we want Ronald here (laughter).