In the spirit of the scenario, what are the butterfly effects of this? If you have Freeman at 1st and Zimmerman at 3B, do you even draft Rendon, or do you draft him and keep him as a meh second-baseman? Or do you presciently give up on the from-2011-on oft-injured Zimmerman?
The ideal situation would have been to trade for Freeman prior to the start of the 2015 season when the Braves were blowing up the team. At that point Zimmerman had already shifted to first and Rendon had taken over at 3B (at the end of the year). So getting Freeman then would have meant parting ways with Zimmerman or moving him to the bench (Tyler Moore was the backup). That would have been a pretty good upgrade.
We still wouldn't have had a lead-off hitter, but man that middle of the order would have been something:
1. Taylor/Span (who was hurt a lot)
2. Werth
3. Harper
4. Freeman
5. Ramos
6. Desmond
7. Rendon
8. Espinosa
