Everyone knows the story of the Cardinals' incredible comeback in the regular season just to make the post season. They were down 10 1/2 games in the Wild Card on August 25th and are now World Series champions. That is a great story, but the story of David Freese getting to this point is pretty interesting as well.
David Freese was asked if he ever thought he could be World Series MVP if he was asked in the past and he said "zero percent chance." So how'd he get here? Well you have to go back and see how the 2006 first-year player draft panned out.
That year the Red Sox' draft overseer was Jason McLeod. At the time of the draft, David Freese was a fifth-year senior out of South Alabama University. McLeod thought this meant, according to draft rules, that he could sign Freese before the draft. MLB however, nixed the deal that included $90,000 signing bonus. So McLeod planned to draft Freese in the seventh round.
As the draft went into the sixth round, McLeod was reminded that he was to take Freese in the next round by a draft aide. When the seventh round came about, McLeod thought he could take a chance, selecting another player who had a slightly higher scouting report. He was sure Freese would still be there in the ninth round.
The ninth round came, and Freese was still there. However, a few picks before the Red Sox, he was selected by the San Diego Padres, 273rd overall. Freese was really upset, even more so because his signing bonus from SD was meager compared to the Sawx deal. McLeod was stunned, and had no answers for what had transpired.*
Freese spent two very productive seasons in the Padres minor league system. After the 2007 season, he was traded straight-up for Jim Edmonds to the St. Louis Cardinals. This must have been a dream come true for Freese, as he grew up rooting for them. He was immediately promoted to Triple-A Memphis and spent 2008 putting up .306/26/91 with a .910 OPS. He has split 2009-2011 between the Majors and Minors, getting into 97 games with the Cardinals this season. Everywhere he has played, he has been a successful hitter. So multiple teams knew he had solid value, although it seems like in the 2007 trade that the Padres may have seriously undervalued him.
David Freese didn't waste time becoming great this postseason. He got off to an ok start, .278/1/5 in the NLDS. Then he went white-hot in the NLCS hitting .545/3/9 with a 1.091 OPS, and was named NLCS-MVP for his effort. He didn't cool off a bit in the World Series.
In Game 1, Freese hit a double and was driven in by Allen Craig. In Game 2, Freese hit a single in the 7th inning and was driven in for the go-ahead run to break the scoreless tie. In Game 3, Freese had two hits, one a double, and two RBI in the 16-7 Cardinal rout. In Game 4, he failed to reach base. In Game 5, he went 1-4.
Enter Game 6. The Cardinals had their backs to the wall, down three games to two. At least they were at home. Freese entered having cooled off the last two games. He struck out in his first at bat. In his second at bat, he reached on a fielder's choice. He walked in his third at bat in the sixth to load the bases. Molina walked after him, plating the game-tying run. Then the game got crazy.
The Rangers scored three times in the top of the 7th to take a commanding 7-4 lead. It didn't look good, but the Cardinals and Freese never gave in. Allen Craig homered in the bottom of the 8th to make it 7-5. This set up a ninth inning that would require the Cards to score at least two runs to save their season.
The Cardinals entered the 9th having to face one of the best closers in MLB in Neftali Feliz. Theriot began the inning with a strikeout. Pujols did his job, doubling. Berkman walked. Allen Craig, who had some big hits in the series, struck out looking. Up next, David Freese.
Freese quickly got himself into a 1-2 count. Down to their last strike in the Series, Freese connected on the next pitch, sending a rocket out to right field which eluded Cruz' glove. It went off the wall and after it was corralled and thrown in, Freese found himself on third base with the 2-strike, 2-out, 2-RBI triple to tie the game at 7. As improbable as that was, it would get crazier.
Andrus singled with one out in the top of the 10th. Josh Hamilton then proceeded to get the big hit for his team with a 2-run HR to make the game 9-7. In the bottom of the inning, the Cardinals, down to their last strike again, rallied to score the two runs necessary to keep the game going. After the Rangers failed to score in the top of the 11th, the first batter up in the bottom of the 11th inning was David Freese.
Mark Lowe came in to pitch the 11th and quickly gave Freese a 3-0 count. After Freese took a strike on the fourth pitch, he fouled off a pitch to get to a 3-2 count. On the sixth pitch of the at bat, he connected on a long drive to center field. It had the distance as it landed in the grass beyond the fence and a fan dove on it. One of the best games that I have personally ever seen was made possible by the huge at bats of David Freese late in the game.
Freese was also solid in Game 7, doubling in two runs and drawing two walks, one of which was intentional. He had been so great, he had actually forced the Rangers to intentionally walk him in an at bat, which would have seemed unheard of to him previously. Freese had earned that respect.
Freese set records in the postseason with 21 RBI and 25 hits. He finished with a postseason line of .397/5/21 and a ridiculous 1.258 OPS. For all of this, he was named World Series MVP. He is just the sixth player to be named LCS MVP and World Series MVP. Not bad for the kid who was supposed to be a Red Sawk if not for a random series of events that brought him eventually to his favorite childhood team and an improbable World Series run.
*This draft story was gathered from the InsideThePadres blog post "Freeeeese" (http://insidethepadres.blogspot.com/2011/10/freeeeese.html)
Other information for this post was gathered from mlb.com and baseball-reference.com.
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