From an article in The Athletic today.
FREDDIE’S PLACE IN BASEBALL HISTORY: Let me ask you this. How often would you say a player like Freddie Freeman ever leaves any team? How often does a star player reach the big leagues with any franchise, win an MVP award, spend enough years with that franchise to qualify for free agency, then leave as a free agent the offseason after that team wins the World Series with him?
Interesting question, right? I asked our friends at STATS Perform to look into it. I could think of only one player who has ever followed that script. I remembered it right.
According to STATS, since the start of free agency in 1976, exactly one other former MVP has won a World Series with his original team and then left as a free agent immediately after winning the World Series. That player was a fellow named Albert Pujols. The team was the Cardinals. The year was 2011. Maybe there’s a lesson there — for everybody. But that’s the only precedent in the entire free-agent era.
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