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The Atlanta Braves and outfielder Ender Inciarte agreed to a five-year, $30.5 million extension Friday that carries a club option for a sixth year.

“We are thrilled to announce an extension for Ender,” Braves general manager John Coppolella said in a statement. “We feel that he’s the best defensive center fielder in baseball and one of the best leadoff hitters in the game. Ender brings so much to our club, on and off the field, and we are happy to have him under club control for at least the next six years.”

Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball reported the financial terms of the deal. Inciarte and the Braves were scheduled to head to salary arbitration if a deal was not completed.

Inciarte, 26, hit .291/.351/.381 with three home runs and 29 runs batted in last season. He came to Atlanta last winter with shortstop Dansby Swanson as part of the package the Arizona Diamondbacks sent back for right-hander Shelby Miller.

While his offensive numbers are middling, Inciarte has developed a reputation as one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball. He won his first Gold Glove in 2016 on the back of a series of spectacular catches that drew him comparisons to former Braves great Andruw Jones.

“It seemed like before, he had trouble getting jumps on balls and always made up for it with his speed,” former Diamondbacks teammate Brad Ziegler told Mark Simon of ESPN.com. “But now he’s gotten really good at reading the ball off the bat, and it’s put him on another level. He’s become a star player. He’s a lot better at deciding when to go for the risky play. He’s really special to watch.”

FanGraphs’ defensive metrics ranked Inciarte third among qualifying center fielders last season. Kevin Pillar and Adam Eaton both played more games than Inciarte’s 131, so the Braves star might have been able to challenge both if it weren’t for an early stint on the disabled list.

Inciarte also began showing signs of developing into a reliable hitter toward the top of the order. He hit for a solid average over his two years in Arizona (.292), but 2016 was the first sign he was beginning to learn patience at the plate. After drawing just 51 walks during his first two MLB seasons, Inciarte set a career high with 45 in 2016.

Even if he never develops much pop—13 home runs in 381 games indicates it’s unlikely—Inciarte is a gem in what could become one of the best trades in Braves history.

Follow Tyler Conway (@jtylerconway) on Twitter.

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The MLB offseason is still far from over, but most of the big dominoes have already fallen on another busy winter.

Mark Trumbo, Jose Bautista, Mike Napoli, Matt Wieters and Michael Saunders headline what’s left of the position-player market, while Jason Hammel is the top unsigned starter and Neftali Feliz, Jerry Blevins, Boone Logan and Greg Holland are all capable of helping at the back of a bullpen.

In other words, there is still a lot to be done before pitchers and catchers report for spring training, but already teams may be left with a few regrets on how this winter has played out.

As we stand two months removed from the World Series, let’s take a look at all 30 teams’ biggest missed opportunity so far this offseason.

In some cases it’s not too late to avoid regret, whether it’s signing a still-available free agent, selling high on a trade chip or locking up a key player with an extension.

For other teams, like those that were targeting Chris Sale on the trade market or Edwin Encarnacion in free agency, the damage is already done.

Begin Slideshow

‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through MLB, fanbases were stirring, from Seattle to Miami.

Some of those fanbases are stirring with giddy excitement about the possibilities for their favorite team in 2017. Others are stirring because the team they cheer for has yet to make a big splash, or perhaps—(audible gasp)—they’ve even taken a step backward this winter.

But we’re focused on the positive this holiday season. What follows is a look at the teams whose fanbases have the most to be excited about this Christmas—and from what that excitement stems.

Atlanta Braves

Rather than rely on a bunch of inexperienced youngsters, veterans Bartolo Colon, R.A. Dickey and Jaime Garcia now follow staff ace Julio Teheran in the rotation. Full seasons from Ender Inciarte, Matt Kemp and Dansby Swanson will bolster the lineup, which still features a perennial MVP candidate in Freddie Freeman.

The farm system is still one of baseball’s best, teeming with high-end talent, including second baseman Ozzie Albies, who could easily supplant Jace Peterson at the keystone in spring training.

It’d be premature to say that the Braves are once again contenders—or that their rebuilding process is complete—but Atlanta looks like a team that can cause problems for the rest of the National League in 2017.

Boston Red Sox

You don’t replace David Ortiz—and to their credit, the Red Sox haven’t tried to. Rather than sign free-agent slugger Edwin Encarnacion, a player many believed was destined to take over as the team’s full-time designated hitter, Boston went in a different direction to bolster its roster.

Instead of jacking home runs over the Green Monster, Chris Sale will keep the opposition from going yard at Fenway Park. With Sale, David Price and reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello atop the rotation, Boston is well-equipped to find continued success in a post-Papi world.

Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox

Whether your rooting interest lies on the North Side or the South Side, there’s plenty to be excited about this holiday season.

The Cubs, still basking in the glory of the franchise’s first World Series crown in more than a century, return the bulk of the team that won it all and wasted little time in bolstering the back end of their bullpen, trading part-time outfielder Jorge Soler to Kansas City for All-Star closer Wade Davis.

Meanwhile, the White Sox took their first step toward a return to relevancy, dealing ace Chris Sale to Boston for a package of four youngsters that included Yoan Moncada, baseball’s best prospect.

With a slew of valuable trade chips left to play, including new ace Jose Quintana, third baseman Todd Frazier and closer David Robertson, chances are there’s more young, controllable talent on the way, though it’s going to arrive after ChiSox fans have opened all their Christmas gifts.

Cleveland Indians

It might have felt like Santa left coal in Cleveland’s stockings after the Indians blew a 3-1 lead over the Cubs in the World Series, but jolly old St. Nick made sure to give Cleveland fans something to smile about just in time for the holiday season, as Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reported:

Certainly, Encarnacion elevates Cleveland’s offense to an entirely new level. But perhaps the most exciting part of his arrival for fans is that, for once, the stars aligned for a small-market club to dip its toes into the deep end of the free-agent pool and land the biggest fish out there.

Houston Astros

Sure, there are still questions about the back end of Houston’s rotation—sorry, Charlie Morton—but the Astros wasted little time in adding firepower to an offense that finished a mediocre eighth in the American League in runs scored last year.

Not only do Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann and Josh Reddick bring a wealth of experience and power to Minute Maid Park, but they provide what was a predominantly right-handed lineup with some much-needed balance.

More importantly, acquiring the trio cost Houston little in the way of prospects, leaving the Astros well-equipped to make another significant move before Opening Day should the opportunity present itself.

New York Yankees

Whether real or perceived, the Hot Stove League isn’t officially underway until the New York Yankees have been linked to a high-profile free agent or trade acquisition. There’s been no shortage of that this winter, with the club’s most recent speculative target being Chicago’s Jose Quintana, as MLB Network’s Jon Morosi noted:

In the past, the team would have gone out and swung a trade for Quintana as its “answer” to Boston’s addition of Sale. But cooler heads have prevailed, and the Yankees have held on to the high-upside prospects they’ve developed and those they spent the second half of the 2016 season adding.

That the club looks intent on building a perennial contender from within, something that hasn’t occurred in the Bronx since the early ’90s, is a reason for Yankees fans to celebrate excitedly.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone from all of us at B/R!

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In keeping with the theme of the upcoming holidays, executives around MLB still have plenty of gift giving to do for their respective managers.

Multiple players—be it via the trade or free-agent markets—are available who could have an impact on division races in 2017. Where those players may land—and to an extent, who they are—still remains a mystery.

So as executives attempt to figure out how they may be able to better their clubs for the 2017 season, let’s try to answer some of the questions they’ll be asking.

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Offseason plans can change in a hurry. Just ask the Pittsburgh Pirates.

At the winter meetings, there were rumblings the Pirates were sellers. Specifically, they were shopping center fielder and former franchise cornerstone Andrew McCutchen. 

Trade rumors are still swirling around the 2013 National League MVP. On Thursday, though, the Bucs became buyers, inking right-hander Ivan Nova to a three-year, $26 million deal, according to FanRag Sports’ Robert Murray.

Nova is a modest splash. But couple his signing with word that Pittsburgh has “worked hard” to trade for Chicago White Sox left-hander Jose Quintana, per ESPN The Magazine‘s Buster Olney, and you have the makings of an all-in strategy.

Why not?

Sure, the Pirates finished a disappointing 78-83 last season and missed the playoffs after three consecutive wild-card berths. 

No, Pittsburgh will never win an arms race in the NL Central with the defending champion Chicago Cubs, who have a bigger budget and a galaxy of young stars.

This team can contend, though. Another crack at the Wild Card Game is within reach, provided the Pirates stay aggressive.

Pittsburgh’s offense is more than adequate. Despite a down year from McCutchen—who posted a career-low .766 OPS—the Pirates finished sixth in the NL in runs (729) and fifth in batting average (.257).

A bounce-back year from McCutchen, assuming the Pirates keep him, could vault the lineup into the NL’s upper echelon. 

The bullpen ranked fifth in the NL with a 3.57 ERA. The loss of closer Mark Melancon, whom the Pirates dealt at the 2016 trade deadline, diminished the relief corps, but it’s not a glaring weakness. And they added right-hander Daniel Hudson for two years and $11 million. 

Instead, Pittsburgh can concentrate its resources on forming a top-flight rotation.

Inking Nova was a solid first step. The 29-year-old Dominican posted an unspectacular 4.17 ERA last season. But he upped his game after a deadline swap from the New York Yankees to Pittsburgh, going 5-2 with a 3.06 ERA in 64.2 innings.

After six-plus up-and-down seasons in the Bronx, Nova looked comfortable in black and yellow. 

“I don’t want to leave this clubhouse, to be honest,” he said in late September, per Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Now he doesn’t have to. He rejoins a rotation fronted by ace Gerrit Cole, who dealt with a triceps strain last season but was an All-Star and top-five NL Cy Young Award finisher in 2015.

With promising young right-handers Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow also in the mix, the Pirates already have the makings of a stout starting five.

Quintana, however, could join Cole and Nova to form a legitimate Big Three.

The 27-year-old southpaw has eclipsed 200 innings in each of the past four campaigns. Last season, he posted a career-best 3.20 ERA. If you like WAR, between 2013 and 2016, Quintana’s 18.1 mark ranked seventh among pitchers by FanGraphs’ measure. 

Most intriguingly for the budget-conscious Bucs, Quintana is locked into an affordable contract. His deal will pay him $7 million in 2017 and $8.85 million in 2018, followed by a $10.5 million team option in 2019 and an $11.5 million club option in 2020.

That said, he won’t come cheap. The White Sox asked for the Houston Astros‘ top two prospects plus another MLB-ready arm in exchange for Quintana, per baseball insider Peter Gammons. 

That means the Pirates would likely have to part with Glasnow, their No. 1 prospect, plus either outfielder/No. 2 prospect Austin Meadows or first baseman/No. 3 prospect Josh Bell and a high-upside ancillary piece. 

It’s a huge ask. Quintana is a huge get. That’s how these things work.

The Pirates’ win-now window remains open. With the Cubs representing the class of the division and the St. Louis Cardinals always lurking, however, the Pirates can’t afford to hang back, as Sean Gentille of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote:

If the Pirates feel good about their chances from now until 2019 — that is, if they feel like they said they’d feel a few years ago — they’ll keep McCutchen and actually go get Quintana. They won’t just try. They’ll make the choice to maximize whatever shot, as currently constituted, they’ve got left. They’ll do right by their fans. They’ll, you know, get better.

Re-upping Nova made them a bit better. Trading for Quintana would make them a lot better. Toss in Cole and an above-average offense and you have a postseason contender.

A few weeks ago, the Bucs appeared to be sellers. Now it’s time for them to adjust their sails.

All statistics and contract information courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com unless otherwise noted. Prospect ratings by MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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Over the last five years, Edwin Encarnacion has hit 193 home runs while emerging as one of MLB‘s most reliable power bats. The Cleveland Indians will hope he’ll continue that pace for at least another three years. 

Encarnacion agreed to a three-year deal with a club option for a fourth, according to FanRag Sports’ Jon Heyman. Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan confirmed the news and added the deal is worth $65 million total, including a $5 million buyout on the club option. 

According to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, the deal could reach $80 million if the fourth-year option is exercised.

USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale noted that nabbing Encarnacion should keep the Indians in the American League pennant race: 

Encarnacion spent the past seven-plus seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays after being acquired from the Cincinnati Reds in a 2009 deal.

Inconsistent and somewhat maligned during his time in Cincinnati, Encarnacion emerged as a star north of the border. He has made three of the last four American League All-Star teams, belted no fewer than 34 home runs in any of the last five seasons and tied with David Ortiz for the AL lead in RBI (127) in 2016.

“There have been a lot of ups and down in the last six years in my career here with Toronto,” Encarnacion said, per John Lott of Blue Jays Nation. “But it’s more good things that happened to me than bad things happened. So I feel good, the way I’ve been for this organization, and I feel very proud.”

Encarnacion and Jose Bautista have anchored the middle of a Blue Jays lineup that’s reached the postseason each of the last two years. Most expected Toronto to attempt to bring Encarnacion back, but even he seemed resigned to his tenure ending late in 2016.

“You feel sad because I want to be here, but it’s not my decision,” Encarnacion said. “Now we have to wait and see what’s going to happen.”

While it’s always risky to lock in a player approaching his 34th birthday on a long-term deal, Encarnacion showed no signs of slowing in 2016. He matched a career high with 42 home runs, producing a .263/.357/.529 slash line. His peripherals were slightly down from last season, but Encarnacion played in 160 games for the first time in his career. 

What’s more, the Blue Jays also showed more of an interest in getting him out into the field. Encarnacion nearly split his first base and designated hitting duties down the middle, which could provide Cleveland with a blueprint. He’s still a mostly dreadful fielder—Encarnacion has produced a positive defensive rating just once in his career—but getting him to border on passable would help. 

With the Indians, Encarnacion will look to bolster the reigning AL champs’ offerings at the plate one year after they pined for some extra power. 

Cleveland ranked 10th out of 15 AL teams in total home runs, and that mark stands to improve quite a bit if Encarnacion can replicate the success he experienced in Toronto. 

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The Pittsburgh Pirates announced they have re-signed starting pitcher Ivan Nova on a three-year contract on Tuesday.

Robert Murray of FanRag Sports, citing sources, first reported the three-year deal was worth $26 million, with a $2 million signing bonus on Dec. 22. Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, citing a source, confirmed Murray’s report and noted the deal is still pending a physical. 

Nova watched his stock drop considerably across his final two-plus seasons with the New York Yankees. With his contract set to expire, the club traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates in August, and the move seemed to provide the spark the Dominican Republic native needed.

The 29-year-old right-hander posted a 3.06 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP with 52 strikeouts in 64.2 innings across 11 starts after the move. It represented a significant improvement after putting up a 4.90 ERA in 21 appearances for the Yankees.

John Perrotto of Today’s Knuckleball noted the veteran starter credited pitching coach Ray Searage and getting away from the bright lights of New York for the turnaround in September.

“He’s a great pitching coach,” Nova said. “We’re having fun here with him. I think that’s one of the keys. It gives me the confidence to go out there and have fun and do the best that you can. We couldn’t always have fun in New York.”

Nova had three complete games during the stretch run with Pittsburgh, which matched his total from his six-plus years with the Yankees. His strong finish also showcased the potential he flashed at times, but never fully capitalized, while in pinstripes.

All told, his overall numbers don’t jump off the page with a 4.30 ERA, 1.37 WHIP and 595 strikeouts in 793.2 career innings. He’s in the middle of what’s typically a player’s prime years, however, and it’s reasonable to believe he can still improve in 2017 and beyond.

Staying in Pittsburgh certainly seems like the right decision on the surface. It gives him an opportunity to build off the progress he made during the latter stages of last season and keeps him in a smaller market, which fit his personality well.

It’s also a wise signing for the Pirates. The team still has several question marks in its rotation behind Gerrit Cole, though it hopes Jameson Taillon, Tyler Glasnow and Chad Kuhl can assume more vital roles. Nova can fill a spot in the middle or back of the rotation with the ability to pitch like a No. 2 starter.

Ultimately, it’s no guarantee he’ll parlay his successful finish in 2016 into a breakout season. But it’s a risk worth taking for a team needing pitching depth. 

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Normally, the week before Christmas is a busy time in baseball, with teams looking to finish up deals with free agents and complete trades before the game goes on an unofficial hiatus until we ring in the new year.

That hasn’t been the case in 2016, leaving us with a rumor mill that’s bursting at the seams with speculation about the immediate futures of some big names. 

Will two of those big names wind up with teams in smaller markets, moves that would obliterate the notion that small-market clubs can’t contend with the “big boys” in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York? Has an injury limited the market for one of the better pitchers left unsigned?

We’ll hit on all that and more in this week’s edition of Fact or Fiction.

Begin Slideshow

There’s always going to be a reaction whenever star players change hands on the MLB trade market. Heck, it would be weird if people didn’t say, “Wow!” or some other exclamation.

But these days, we’re often saying, “Wow!” not at the reality that such players are being traded but at what they’re being traded for.

We know this because we can round up a bullet-pointed list of prominent examples from this winter, this summer and last winter. Like so…

This Winter

• The Boston Red Sox sent four prospects—including MLB.com‘s No. 1- and No. 30-ranked prospects, Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech, respectively—to the Chicago White Sox for ace left-hander Chris Sale.
• The Washington Nationals sent three prospects, including No. 3-ranked Lucas Giolito and No. 38-ranked Reynaldo Lopez, to the White Sox for center fielder Adam Eaton.

This Summer

• The Cleveland Indians sent four prospects, including No. 15-ranked Clint Frazier and No. 78-ranked Justus Sheffield, to the New York Yankees for ace reliever Andrew Miller.
• The Chicago Cubs sent four players, including No. 17-ranked Gleyber Torres, to the Yankees for closer Aroldis Chapman.
• The Red Sox sent No. 13-ranked Anderson Espinoza to the San Diego Padres for All-Star lefty Drew Pomeranz.

Last Winter

• The Arizona Diamondbacks sent a controllable outfielder (Ender Inciarte), their 2015 No. 1 pick (SS Dansby Swanson) and a well-regarded pitching prospect (RHP Aaron Blair) to the Atlanta Braves for right-hander Shelby Miller.
• The Houston Astros sent six players, including hard-throwing righty Vince Velasquez and No. 83 prospect Derek Fisher, to the Philadelphia Phillies for ace reliever Ken Giles and minor league infielder Jonathan Arauz.
• The Red Sox sent four prospects, including No. 26-ranked Manuel Margot, to the Padres for closer Craig Kimbrel.

The Braves got the most praise for shaking down the Diamondbacks in the Miller trade. But to some degree or another, the sellers in each trade got thumbs-up from all corners of the baseball realm.

And this may not even be a comprehensive list of recent seller-friendly trades. There are cases to be made for the Diamondbacks in the Jean Segura trade, the Kansas City Royals in the Wade Davis trade, the Milwaukee Brewers in the Jonathan Lucroy/Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith trades, the Oakland A’s in the Rich Hill/Josh Reddick trade and the Yankees in the Carlos Beltran trade.

And so on. Point is: It’s been hard to be underwhelmed at what star talent has gone for.

It wasn’t always like this.

Five winters ago, Rany Jazayerli was lamenting at Grantland how teams no longer seemed able to trade star veterans for young studs. Just two winters ago, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs drew up a list of recent big-ticket trades and found the buyer-friendly deals easily outweighed the seller-friendly deals.

As for why this seemed so shocking, Cameron wrote:

It feels like if our default reaction to star player trades is almost always that the seller isn’t getting enough in return, then it’s more likely that our expectations are what is out of whack, and not that every team selling a star player is misreading the market for their player.

Survey says: yup.

While NFL and NBA fans have long obsessed over the next wave of talent playing in the college and high school ranks, it’s more recently that baseball fans have taken to obsessing over the next wave of talent playing in the minor leagues. That’s partially owed to the proliferation of prospect coverage on the series of tubes known as the “internet.”

But it’s also a reaction to reality.

In 2014, FiveThirtyEight’s Neil Paine pointed out that MLB’s star power had been shifting to younger players as the league moved further past the steroid era. And it hasn’t stopped. FanGraphs‘ WAR claims that the last two years have been the best ever for 25-and-under hitters. Young pitchers, meanwhile, have at least guaranteed big radar gun readings.

Of course, this isn‘t just an excuse for fans to grow attached to prospects. It’s also an excuse for major league front offices to do the same.

In cases like the Astros and Cubs, that’s meant tearing down what they had and using the draft and international market to build contenders from scratch. More recently, the Braves, Brewers, Phillies, Padres and now the White Sox have set themselves on that path.

At the same time, there’s also the effect that the second wild card has had since it was introduced in 2012. It’s emboldened more teams to try and contend every year. So while every team now values young talent, there’s also a sharp line between two different classes of teams. There are the few rebuilders and the many contenders.

In an environment like this—one with lots of young talent to go around and some teams having more incentive than others to stockpile it—it may have been just a matter of time before seller-friendly trades became more common. All that was needed was the same thing the Joker tells us connects madness and gravity: a little push.

What happened last winter seems to have done the trick.

Last offseason’s free-agent class was by far the best in recent memory and was paid accordingly. Per Jeff Todd of MLB Trade Rumors, nearly $2.5 billion was spent on free agents. That made the trade market the only place teams could look for relatively cheap impact talent. 

This set the stage for the Kimbrel, Giles and Miller trades, which went down within a month of each other. The trade that sent Chapman from the Reds to the Yankees didn’t fit for extraordinary circumstances, but those three trades effectively pushed the trade market’s scales in favor of sellers.

The summer trade market then provided the perfect environment for other sellers to take advantage. The second wild card created the usual gap between buyers and sellers around the trade deadline, but there was an extra wrinkle this time around. Clubs like the Reds, Phillies, Braves and Padres had largely already stripped themselves of their best trade chips. Other clubs like the Diamondbacks, Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels had good players but none really for sale.

The many teams looking to deal for impact talent thus had very few sellers to turn to, creating the ultimate seller’s market. That was good news for the Yankees, especially, who made the gutsy (and correct) call to pull the plug on a mediocre present to take aim at a brighter future.

Which brings us to this winter, in which the seller-friendly trade market has been upheld by an old-fashioned market force: supply and demand.

This winter’s free-agent market is the polar opposite of last year’s market. Keith Law of ESPN.com spoke for everyone in writing it “might be the worst I’ve ever seen.” He specifically lamented the market’s lack of athleticism and starting pitching, the latter of which wasn’t lost on executives.

“The starting pitching landscape this offseason has been a story for what, 18 months now?” Tampa Bay Rays general manager Erik Neander told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com. “There’s been as much of an advance-notice publicly as there’s been in a while with respect to a free-agent class.”

This put the White Sox in an enviable position with Sale, and they took advantage of it. While nobody seems to think the Red Sox made a horrible trade, the White Sox may have gotten just as much applause for the return they got. Even Red Sox boss Dave Dombrowski admitted he paid a heavy price.

“There will come a day when Moncada is putting in his 15-year career that we will be saying, ‘The Red Sox, geez, I can’t believe we traded that guy,'” he told Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “So yes, it does complicate it. He’s a great player. If he’s not a tremendous player, I’ll be very surprised.”

The White Sox were in a similar position with Eaton, whose athleticism elevated him amid a market dominated by one-dimensional sluggers. This time, Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post reported the reaction among executives was decidedly pro-White Sox.

“I love Eaton. But I’m pretty shocked,” said one.

The lack of athleticism on the open market likely also helped the Diamondbacks swap Segura for the upside that Walker, a former elite prospect, may still have. Before the winter is over, it’s a good bet that another team will get a big return for a starting pitcher (sideways glance at Jose Quintana).

Another good bet is that life won’t always be this good for the trade market’s sellers. These things go in cycles. The next one will either be the market evening out or shifting back in favor of buyers.

By the same token, the shift in favor of sellers over the last year is something that was likely inevitable and that has been realized by a perfect storm of circumstances.

If nothing else, a reminder that such things don’t happen by accident.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. Contract and payroll data courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

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First it was Ryan Braun. Now it’s Brian Dozier.

It’s hardly a surprise to see the Los Angeles Dodgers linked to a right-handed hitter with power, given the difficulties they had against left-handed pitching in 2016. They were the only team to make the playoffs despite a losing record when facing a lefty starter, and they went 0-3 when facing lefties in the postseason.

Braun (1.010 OPS against left-handers in 2016) could help them. Dozier (.965) could, too.

As of this moment, the Dodgers don’t have either one. They haven’t traded for Braun, despite midseason talks that nearly led to a deal, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today. They haven’t yet traded for Dozier, despite a willingness to discuss top prospect Jose De Leon, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.

Both remain available on the trade market, even though Milwaukee Brewers general manager David Stearns told Milwaukee’s 105.7 The Fan, “My expectation is that Ryan’s going to be here next year and going forward.”

You can take that to mean he hasn’t received any reasonable offers this winter, because it’s hard to believe the rebuilding Brewers wouldn’t remain open to a deal.

The question—for the Dodgers and any other team looking to trade for right-handed pop—is whether Braun or Dozier would be a bigger help. They don’t play the same position, and they don’t have the same contract, but they’re similar players in terms of offensive potential.

“Braun is a more complete hitter,” said one American League scout who saw both play last year.

“Everything equal, I would take Braun offensively,” another AL scout agreed. “But I would rather have Dozier overall.”

So would I, for reasons that go beyond Braun’s 2013 suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs.

Braun might be a better bet to hit big in 2017. His 134 OPS+ over the last two seasons, as calculated by Baseball-Reference.com, ranked higher than Jose Bautista and Manny Machado, among others.

But Dozier hit more home runs than Braun and nearly everyone else in baseball in 2016. (He tied Edwin Encarnacion and Khris Davis for third in the majors, with 42.) Dozier, who turns 30 in May, is also three-and-a-half years younger than Braun.

Then there are the contracts.

Dozier’s is more than reasonable, with a $6 million salary for 2017 that jumps to $9 million for 2018. He’s eligible for free agency after that, so it would cost considerably more to keep him long-term. Still, he’s a bargain.

Braun is not. He makes $19 million each of the next two seasons, then $18 million in 2019 and $16 million in 2020, when he’ll be 36. He can also block trades to all but six teams. Since the Dodgers are one of the six on his list, and since they’re one of the clubs that can afford his contract, it’s not surprising that the Brewers’ most serious trade talks concerning Braun seem to have been with them.

It’s also not a surprise the Dodgers seem to prefer Dozier, who plays a position of greater need.

The Minnesota Twins should have a bigger market for the affordable Dozier, and Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports noted the San Francisco Giants’ interest on Tuesday. Beyond those two teams, though, it’s hard to come up with a contender in need of a second baseman. The Detroit Tigers faced the same issue when they gauged trade interest in their second baseman, Ian Kinsler.

Besides the better contract, Dozier has another edge. The Twins second baseman has played 155 or more games each of the last three seasons, while Braun last played 150 contests in 2012. He played 135 in 2016, never going on the disabled list but missing time with a back injury.

Braun had surgery to repair a herniated disk after the 2015 season, which surely is a concern to any team considering a trade.

Dozier doesn’t carry similar risk—or similar baggage. While Braun hasn’t been in trouble since serving his suspension, the fact he was busted for PEDs doesn’t go away.

As one anonymous team executive told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, “When a guy with that contract has been busted once, it’s hard to commit those dollars and those player resources because if he gets busted again, you lose all of your guys and you lose Braun. Nobody is saying he’d do it again, but while he’s a very good impact player, it’s just a tough one.”

With Dozier, the question is whether you believe his 2016 season was a breakout or a career year. Is he now a 40-homer-a-year guy, or will he slip back to the 18-28 range he was in before last season?

“I have more trust in Braun to maintain the consistency of impact,” one National League scout said.

Because of the contract, the acquisition cost, the back trouble and even the drug past, a team trading for Braun would be taking a bigger risk. But it could be for a bigger reward.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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