Freddie Freeman and his wife Chelsea added to their family last month with the birth of their fourth child, daughter London Rosemary Joy.
Freeman, who is now 36 and in the middle of his 17th MLB season, has started to think about life after baseball. Freeman said earlier this year that he would like to chase a few statistical milestones with the Los Angeles Dodgers before potentially calling it a career.
However, Freeman indicated that he has thought about retiring earlier than anticipated so he doesn’t miss out on any more important family moments, via Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
“Obviously, getting 3,000 hits would be very, very cool,” Freeman said. “But ever since baby girl came into this world about a month ago, my perspective has changed a little bit on individual stats and how long I would want to play.”
After contemplating his future, Freeman may end up following through with his original plan of retiring at the end of the 2029 season. He remains open to that possibility after speaking to his grandfather.
“He was like, ‘You’re going to be the best dad, the best husband, for the next 50 years. You only have a few years of this left,’” Freeman said. “Then I was like, that makes a whole lot of sense.”
Freeman previously stated in Spring Training that his goal is to play four more seasons and retire at the age of 40. Doing so would put him in rare territory as one of only a select number of players to appear in at least 20 MLB seasons.
That would also give Freeman a chance to become the 34th player in MLB history to reach 3,000 career hits. He currently has 54 hits in 53 games this season and is on pace to finish with 165.
Assuming he reaches that number, Freeman would need to average 135 hits over his final three seasons to join the 3,000 club.
Freddie Freeman wants to retire with Dodgers
Freeman has only one year remaining on his Dodgers contract after this season, but made it clear he wants to retire in L.A.
“I would like that, yeah,” Freeman said earlier this year. “I love being here. I’m from Southern California. I’ve had a great time. The fans, you guys treat me great. Everyone’s treating my family good. So that’s out of my control.
“I’m not worried about another contract, not going to bring it up, not going to talk about it. I got two years left. I’m just an employee. I just do my job, and if they want me back, they want me back. But I think Andrew and everyone know that I love being here. So whatever happens, happens.”
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