Very rarely are stars in Major League Baseball staying with one team throughout their entire careers.
Freddie Freeman has gone to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Trevor Story is now a member of the Boston Red Sox, and Corey Seager is now with the Texas Rangers.
Amidst all the uncertainty surrounding the New York Yankees and their contract extension talks with their slugger Aaron Judge, first baseman Anthony Rizzo, who happens to be Judge’s Yankees’ teammate, weighed in on the matter.
The veteran first baseman offered a harsh but seemingly true take on loyalty in the game of baseball today, citing Freeman’s departure from the Atlanta Braves as an example.
Yankee 1B Anthony Rizzo, who went through contract extension talks with the #Cubs before they collapsed, has spoken to teammate Aaron Judge about his #Yankee contract talks. ‘You see Freddie Freeman isn’t on the Braves anymore. There’s no loyalty in this game.”
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) April 7, 2022
No Loyalty?
Rizzo of course has experience going through contract extension talks, having done so last year with the Chicago Cubs before he was ultimately traded at the deadline, but as time goes on, the more it becomes clear that Rizzo’s assessment here is completely accurate.
It’s incredibly rare these days for players to stay with one organization throughout their entire MLB careers, with the exceptions of Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Outside of Wainwright and Molina, we aren’t really seeing much of that anymore.
The fact is that loyalty has seemingly been lost in the business side of not just baseball, but all major professional sports.
Loyalty of course works two ways.
The Braves went ahead and traded for Matt Olson before Freeman had even signed, effectively ending his run with the team, but players aren’t always showing loyalty to their organizations either.
We’ll see what happens next season in free agency when a new class of players hits the market.
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