I think it's a pretty shrewd move from a WAR accumulation standpoint. Defense seems to be a concern but Atkins headfaking and going all in on offense by adding Freeman accumulates so much more WAR for this team than anything else we could realistically do, short of trading for J-Ram.
Adding Freeman's 4.5 WAR to first and then kicking Vlad's 6 WAR over to third (does his WAR drop much from this?) just maximizes the amount of talent we have on the roster. The defense will suck but the lineup is just so much better and with the DH spot still there we can still limit Vlad's games at 3B some. We could consider someone like Matt Chapman but he's not as good as Freeman and we'd have to give up assets.
Now Freeman takes 6 years like many are saying this makes less sense, but I could see the Jays trying to get Freeman to bite on a Bauer-type of contract which would be perfect.