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The Chicago White Sox and first baseman Jose Abreu reached an agreement Saturday on a one-year contract extension to avoid arbitration.

Chicago announced the new deal on its official Twitter account. Scott Merkin of MLB.com reported the power-hitting infielder will earn $10.825 million in 2017.

Abreu has made a massive impact across his first three years in the majors. He’s cranked 91 home runs to go along with a .299 batting average and a .360 on-base percentage. In addition, he’s also tallied at least 100 runs batted in every year.

The Cuba native’s success quickly eliminated any concerns about his transition as a 27-year-old rookie after a successful career in the Cuban National Series. He’s proved himself as one of the most impactful offensive contributors in the American League.

In September, Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times noted the first baseman lamented the fact that his individual numbers haven’t translated into team success, stating, “In this sport nobody likes to lose.”

He expressed an interest in sticking with the organization for the long haul, though:

I’m going to forever be grateful to this organization because of everything they’ve done for me. I would like to play my whole career in the U.S., with this team, because it’s like my family. They were the ones who gave me the opportunity, they were the ones who helped me through the whole process to come here and to become a U.S. resident. They have been very supportive of me, and my family, too. I want to be with this team, to be an important part of this team and to win a championship with this team.

The latest contract is a small step toward that goal. It also represents a minor pay raise after he made $10 million in 2016 before exercising an opt-out clause in his prior deal, per Spotrac.

He’s been the subject of some trade rumors this offseason as well. Thomas Harding of MLB.com reported in early December the White Sox and Colorado Rockies engaged in “preliminary talks” about a potential deal. It’s unclear whether those discussions ever advanced beyond the exploratory stage.

For now, he’s slated to hit in the middle of the Chicago order. It’s a lineup featuring some strength from the No. 2 through No. 5 spots with Abreu, Tim Anderson, Todd Frazier and Melky Cabrera. But the rest is patchwork as the club enters a rebuilding phase.

Ultimately, the White Sox’s decision to revamp the system could lead to an Abreu trade. It will be difficult to find another player or prospect capable of replacing his pop, though.

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The Miami Marlins and free-agent relief pitcher Brad Ziegler agreed to a two-year contract worth $16 million plus incentives, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal on Friday. 

MLB.com’s Joe Frisario later confirmed Rosenthal‘s reports. 

The 37-year-old has been one of baseball’s most underrated relievers over his nine professional seasons. 

With the Oakland Athletics, Arizona Diamondbacks and, most recently, the Boston Red Sox for half of a season, Ziegler has posted a career 2.44 ERA with a WHIP of 1.228, per Baseball-Reference.com. 

He’s been close to lights-out over the past two seasons, posting a 1.85 ERA and 30 saves in 66 appearances during 2015 with the Diamondbacks. 

Ziegler racked up 13 saves and a 2.82 ERA in 36 games in 2016 before he was dealt to the Red Sox. In Boston, he allowed just five earned runs in 29.2 innings as more of a middle reliever:

A sidearm delivery, which at times can dip down to almost that of the submarine variety, has made Ziegler such a tough pitcher to read.

The various arm angles, especially from an unorthodox position, camouflage the ball in a way that makes the batter unable to pick the ball up as quickly as a pitcher with an overhand delivery. 

It’s a much-needed acquisition for the Marlins bullpen, which lost out on big-time free agents Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman this offseason but did manage to sign former Red Sox reliever Junichi Tazawa on Friday, via ESPN.com.

Now with Ziegler joining him in Miami, the Marlins have more options alongside A.J. Ramos for late-inning situations come 2017. 

Follow @JoePantorno on Twitter.

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The New York Yankees are rebuilding. They’re also trying to win. That’s how it works in the Bronx.

Those aren’t mutually exclusive goals. Last season, the Yankees sold at the trade deadline and restocked a farm system that Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter subsequently ranked No. 1 in the game. They also stayed in the playoff picture until late September thanks to contributions from youngsters such as catcher and American League Rookie of the Year runner-up Gary Sanchez.

It’s possible to shed costly pieces and compete at the same time.

This winter, the Yanks traded veteran backstop Brian McCann to the Houston Astros for prospects. They also handed one year and $13 million to aging slugger Matt Holliday and a whopping five years and $86 million to closer Aroldis Chapman.

Clearly, general manager Brian Cashman is treading the line between a full-blown fire sale and keeping his team competitive. Hardcore fans are surely rejoicing the burgeoning youth movement, but the casual observers who put butts in seats at Yankee Stadium want to watch a winner.

To that end, Cashman has work left to do. Specifically, he has to improve a starting rotation that’s littered with question marks and could be the club’s undoing.

We’ll explore how he can accomplish that in a moment. First, let’s drill a little deeper on where the Yankees stand.

New York is in decent shape on offense, with seasoned bats such as Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley and Brett Gardner joining the nascent brigade led by Sanchez, masher Aaron Judge and top-rated outfield prospect Clint Frazier.

The bullpen is robust behind the dual threats of Chapman and super-setup man Dellin Betances.

The starting five, meanwhile, is a concerning mishmash.

Ace Masahiro Tanaka threw 199.2 innings in 2016, his highest total since coming over from Japan three seasons ago, and posted a 3.07 ERA.

Behind him, there’s hard-throwing right-hander Michael Pineda, who has shown flashes of brilliance but posted a 4.82 ERA in 2016, and 36-year-old southpaw CC Sabathia.

After that, the Yankees are counting on some combination of Luis Severino, Bryan Mitchell, Luis Cessa, Chad Green and Adam Warren. All except Mitchell owned ERAs north of 4.00 last season, and Green has a grand total of eight big league starts under his belt.

That’s not a disaster if everything breaks right, but it’s uncertainty on stilts.

So what are New York’s options? The club could mortgage the farm and go after a top-tier trade candidate such as the Tampa Bay Rays‘ Chris Archer or the Chicago White Sox‘s Jose Quintana.

The Yankees, however, didn’t make a serious play for White Sox ace Chris Sale, who wound up with the archrival Boston Red Sox. It’s unlikely New York will suddenly become a big-time buyer.

There are lesser trade targets. The Kansas City Royals may be looking to shed payroll with multiple key pieces due to hit free agency next offseason.

Mercurial right-hander Yordano Ventura is Kansas City’s flashiest pitching piece, but southpaw Danny Duffy is an interesting, under-the-radar possibility.

The 27-year-old went 12-3 with a 3.51 ERA in 179.2 innings last season with 188 strikeouts next to 42 walks.

He has a final year of arbitration remaining before he tastes the market, which means he doesn’t necessarily fit with a long-term vision. It also means he won’t cost a massive haul in prospects.

Duffy is a fly-ball pitcher, which could hurt him in the home run-happy confines at 1 East 161st Street. He’d slot in nicely behind Sabathia, however, and give New York another proven mid-rotation arm.

Turning to the free-agent stew, there’s meat to be picked from the bones.

“I think it’s less likely that we wind up with a starter,” Cashman said of the free-agent options, per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN.com). “It’s a tough market to be finding one in it.”

Tough, but not impossible.

Right-hander Jason Hammel was a workmanlike contributor for the Chicago Cubs rotation with a 3.83 ERA in 166.2 innings last season.

The Yanks were “sniffing around” Hammel in November, per the New York Post‘s George A. King III, and he’s unsigned as of this writing.

Another name that could pique their olfactory response is Ivan Nova. New York traded Nova and his 4.90 ERA to the Pittsburgh Pirates at the deadline last season.

He excelled with the Bucs to the tune of a 3.06 ERA in 11 starts. The 29-year-old Dominican Republic native was stellar in stretches after making his MLB debut with the Yankees in 2010 and could be a bounce-back candidate.

Speaking of which, here’s one more option: Doug Fister.

Yes, Fister put up a career-worst 4.64 ERA last season and will turn 33 in February. As CBSSports.com’s Mike Axisa put it, “The trend is not pretty.”

Fister, however, has been a ground-ball pitcher throughout his career. He was a top-10 Cy Young Award finisher with the Washington Nationals in 2014. He could be had on a short-term, show-me contract that won’t bust the bank.

None of these names will make the Yankees instant World Series favorites. Some may argue they’d be better off cashing in a gaggle of minor league chips for an Archer or a Quintana, or standing pat.

As Cashman threads the needle between retooling and relevance, however, he’d be wise to add some impact depth to his stable of arms.

He has a mandate to play the kids and grow the farm. He also has to try to win.

That’s how it works in the Bronx. And this is how it goes when you’re chasing starting pitching in the thin, cold winter of 2016.

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When Mike Dunn gets $19 million from the Colorado Rockies, it tells you it’s always great to be a left-handed reliever.

It also tells you Ian Desmond was right.

When the Rockies made Desmond’s five-year, $70 million deal official this week, Colorado’s new first baseman (or will he be an outfielder?) spoke of joining a team on the rise.

“They’re close,” Desmond told reporters, including Thomas Harding of MLB.com. “That’s an industry-wide consensus. Ownership and management are committed to turning that corner. I’m right there with them on board.”

I’m not sure I’d yet call it a consensus, but there is a growing feeling the Rockies are getting better. They haven’t had a winning season since 2010, but even as they were losing 87 games in 2016, they won praise for their young talent, both on the big league club and in the system.

Already this winter, they’re winning praise again.

“They’re my sleeper team for this year,” one National League scout said this week.

It’s hard to consider the Rockies more than just a sleeper, given the presence of the high-spending Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants in their division. With all three teams needing back-end bullpen help this winter, the Giants spent $62 million over four years on Mark Melancon (a Colorado native), and the Dodgers topped that by spending $80 million over five years on Kenley Jansen.

Dunn isn’t Melancon, and he isn’t Jansen. He has four saves in eight major league seasons. Jansen had three saves in the 2016 postseason alone.

But spending what they did on Dunn (the $19 million is over three years) continues a winter trend for the Rockies. Instead of looking like a team trying to find its way, Colorado now looks like one pushing to win.

Signing Desmond to the second-biggest free-agent contract in franchise history (behind Mike Hampton’s $121 million in 2000) was part of that. But so were the other moves the Rockies have tried to make, and the ones they still could pursue.

While the Rockies signed Desmond as a first baseman, his experience playing the outfield last season with the Texas Rangers opens the possibility the Rockies could sign someone else to play first—Mark Trumbo? Edwin Encarnacion?—and trade one of their outfielders.

Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com reported the Rockies wanted Kevin Gausman from the Baltimore Orioles as part of a deal for either Charlie Blackmon or Carlos Gonzalez. Kubatko wrote the Orioles “aren’t trading Kevin Gausman,” which is no doubt true.

The bigger point, at least from the Rockies’ perspective, is that general manager Jeff Bridich is thinking big when he looks for pitching help. As Yahoo’s Jeff Passan tweeted during the winter meetings, the Rockies would like to trade for “a front-of-rotation-type pitcher.”

The Rockies don’t have one of those in their current rotation. They do have promising 25-year-old right-hander Jon Gray in the big leagues and equally promising 23-year-old right-hander Jeff Hoffman nearly ready in the minors. Hoffman was one of three prospects the Rockies got from the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2015 Troy Tulowitzki trade.

Trading Tulowitzki was a big move for the Rockies, one ownership had previously resisted. It turned the team and the clubhouse over to the next generation, a group that includes star third baseman Nolan Arenado and shortstop Trevor Story, who was a strong Rookie of the Year candidate before a thumb injury ended his season in July.

With Arenado, Story, National League batting champion DJ LeMahieu and outfielder David Dahl, there was a strong sense in the Rockies clubhouse that they are a team on the rise. Scouts who followed the Rockies said the same thing and cited more young players the club has coming in the minor leagues.

They’ll go into 2017 with Bud Black as the new manager, which figures to be a positive not because Walt Weiss was bad (he wasn’t), but because Weiss and Bridich admittedly weren’t seeing eye to eye.

The challenges remain, from the payroll that will still trail the Dodgers and Giants by millions to the altitude that makes pitching in Colorado difficult and can make hitters believe they need a different approach on the road from the one they use at home.

It’s not impossible for the Rockies to win. They went all the way to the World Series in 2007.

Ten years later, they won’t be the preseason favorites to get there again. But at the very least, they seem headed in the right direction.

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

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Any thoughts the Philadelphia Phillies had about trading Odubel Herrera have likely gone away after the All-Star center fielder signed a contract extension with the team.

The Phillies announced the five-year extension Thursday.

Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer reported the contract will pay Herrera $30.5 million in guarantees and includes option years for 2022 and 2023.

There had been some speculation about the Phillies exploring trade options for Herrera this offseason. T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com reported during the winter meetings the team “might be willing” to deal the 24-year-old. 

Herrera has been a pleasant surprise in two seasons with the Phillies. He was a Rule 5 draft pick in December 2014 after the Texas Rangers kept him off their 40-man roster because they didn’t have a spot available for him. 

With the Phillies embracing a full-scale rebuild, Herrera made the team’s Opening Day roster. He put together a solid debut season with a .297/.344/.418 slash line in 147 games. 

Herrera was even better in 2016, posting a .286/.361/.420 slash line with 15 home runs, 25 stolen bases and 4.2 wins above replacement, per Baseball-Reference.com. He was named to the National League All-Star team for his efforts. 

MLB.com’s Oliver Macklin noted Herrera’s eight wins above replacement in his first two seasons with the Phillies is the second-best mark in team history, trailing only Dick Allen’s 8.8 in 1964-65.

The Phillies’ commitment to Herrera is the latest sign this franchise is heading in the right direction. It’s going to take more time for the farm system, which MLB.com ranked seventh coming into 2016, to release all of its treasures like shortstop J.P. Crawford and outfielder Nick Williams. 

Herrera is a key piece of the foundation in Philadelphia and will be part of the next great wave of Phillies baseball after signing a long-term extension with the franchise.

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New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey watched his 2016 campaign come to an abrupt end when he was forced to undergo season-ending surgery to treat thoracic outlet syndrome, but the 2015 National League Comeback Player of the Year sounded optimistic regarding his return when he spoke to reporters on Wednesday. 

According to ESPN.com’s Adam Rubin, the 27-year-old confirmed he’s on the mend and feeling strong on the mound after the surgery “involved removing a rib so that muscles constricting a nerve that bridges the neck and shoulder had space to relax.”

Specifically, Harvey confirmed he’s no longer experiencing numbing sensations in his right throwing hand. 

“My hand was really cold all the time,” he said, per Rubin. “I’ve got some warmth back and no more tingling. The ball is coming out really good right now, especially for December.”

Harvey also expressed optimism regarding his ability to bounce back following a shaky statistical 2016 season precipitated by nerve issues. 

“I’d like to think so. Obviously I don’t have a crystal ball,” Harvey said, per Rubin. “The way things are feeling now, the way the body feels, I’m feeling great.”

In 17 starts last season, Harvey went 4-10 with a career-worst 4.86 ERA and 1.47 WHIP. In fact, it marked the first time in Harvey’s career that he posted an ERA above 3.00. 

Harvey, of course, is no stranger to rebounding following injury woes. 

The 2013 All-Star missed the entirety of the 2014 season after he was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery, but he rebounded in 2015 by going 13-8 with a 2.71 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, 188 strikeouts and 37 walks over the course of 29 starts. 

Based on that precedent and the steady rate at which Harvey has seemingly recovered over the past five months, it won’t be a surprise if he returns to the mound and assumes dominant form once again for a Mets team that will have its eyes on reclaiming the NL East crown. 

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Derek Holland will get a much-needed fresh start in 2017, as he signed a one-year deal with the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.

The White Sox announced the signing after MLB.com’s TR Sullivan was the first to report Holland’s decision, and Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News shared the length of the contract. 

Grant also reported the deal could be worth up to $8 million and provided some further context to the move:

Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported slightly different terms, tweeting that the contract is worth a base of $6 million with as much as $1 million in incentives.

The Texas Rangers declined their $11 million contract option on Holland in November, which made him a free agent and freed him up to sign with any team.

It wasn’t a surprise to see the Rangers move on from Holland after his struggles over the previous two seasons and inability to stay on the field since 2013. 

Holland has appeared in just 38 games over the previous three seasons, and his performance on the mound has been less than stellar with a 4.30 ERA in just 203 innings during that span. 

Grant wrote about some of the other issues that have plagued Holland during his injury-riddled run since 2014:

His average fastball velocity dropped to 91.7 mph in 2016 from 93.6 in 2013. The difference in speed between his secondary pitches is now just 5 mph where it once was 7.5 mph. It adds up to a recipe for guys being better able to identify pitches and being able to wait for mistakes with more assurance they will come. The Rangers wanted him to throw his changeup more in 2016 and the usage did grow, but at a microscopic level: Less than one percent.

Holland completed just 107.1 innings in 2016, going 7-9 with a 4.95 ERA and 1.41 WHIP.

At just 30 years old, Holland will have a chance to reinvent himself as a member of the White Sox. His career ERA of 4.35 ERA leaves something to be desired, but the veteran southpaw did manage to go 10-9 with a 3.42 ERA in 2013.

Given how much of a struggle it has been for Holland to take the mound every fifth day, he has a lot to prove next season if he hopes to continue his MLB career as a starting pitcher. He does get a clean slate and will have ample opportunity to prove there is more in the tank than he’s been able to show lately. 

Holland could provide great value as part of a weak free-agent class, and he will have a chance to become an important part of Chicago’s rotation after the team dealt Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox.

Although Holland figures to slot behind the likes of Jose Quintana, Carlos Rodon and James Shields, he gives the White Sox a veteran presence and depth at the back end of their pitching staff until youngsters Lucas Giolito (22) and Reynaldo Lopez (22) are ready to step up.

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After four years with the Boston Red Sox, veteran reliever Koji Uehara has found a new home with the Chicago Cubs. 

ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers reported Wednesday that Uehara inked a one-year, $6 million deal with the defending World Series champs, and the Cubs later announced the news. 

Uehara is one of the most interesting relievers in Major League Baseball. He has performed at a high level for nearly a decade despite having a fastball that FanGraphs‘ stats show has never averaged more than 89.2 mph and dipped to a career-low 86.7 mph in 2016. 

The key to Uehara’s success is his split-finger fastball that drops off the table when he’s at his best, as Tim Britton of the Providence Journal wrote in 2014: “It was also the most effective his splitter has ever been, as opponents hit a beggarly .096 off the pitch in 2013. It induced a career-high whiff rate of 28 percent.”

Turning 41 last April, Uehara is starting to show signs he lacks the same type of dominance with that splitter. His 1.5 home runs allowed per nine innings tied the worst mark of his career (2011), per Baseball-Reference.com.

The veteran also posted his highest ERA since 2009 with a 3.45 mark last season, but he still baffled hitters overall with his seventh consecutive season posting a WHIP lower than 1.00 and more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings, so the sky is hardly falling for the right-hander. 

The concern for Uehara is there’s such a small margin for error with his declining fastball velocity that at some point hitters will be able to tee off on the pitch, negating the effectiveness of his splitter, as right-handed hitters gave him fits last season. 

Until that point comes, though, Uehara is still one of the most consistent relievers in baseball and a terrific value because his age didn’t force the Cubs to break the bank.

While Chicago was unable to keep closer Aroldis Chapman in free agency, it acquired Wade Davis via trade and now boasts a potentially dominant late-inning trio with Uehara joining both Davis and Hector Rondon.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are going to be good in 2017. For fans of the franchise, this must be at once comforting and beside the point.

The Dodgers being good has been a fact of life for the last four seasons. They’ve averaged 92 wins per year, captured four National League West titles and made two trips to the National League Championship Series. That’s one more than the Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos have made in 48 years of existence.

The problem, of course, has been ascending from good to great.

Coming close to the World Series is nice, but you know what they say about coming close only counting in horseshoes and hand grenades. It’s been 28 years since the Dodgers both went to the World Series and won it—a long streak for such a storied franchise.

Not to mention one that’s been keeping its payrolls well north of $200 million since 2013. And the Dodgers recently ensured they’ll be right there again in 2017.

They committed $48 million to left-handed starter Rich Hill at the winter meetings last week. On Monday, they agreed to spend another $80 million on closer Kenley Jansen and $64 million on third baseman Justin Turner. Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com calculated that Los Angeles is slated for a $230 million luxury-tax payroll in 2017. And that’s with holes still remaining on its roster.

My initial take on the Dodgers filling three big holes by re-signing Hill, Jansen and Turner was that they secured a spot among the NL’s elite clubs in 2017. I stopped short of putting them on the same level with the Chicago Cubs because, well, the Cubs are really good.

They won 103 games in 2016. They then dispatched the Dodgers in the NLCS en route to their first World Series title in 108 years. Their roster has since taken some hits—but none they can’t recover from. It’s that simple.

Or seemed to be, anyway. After the Jansen and Turner signings, FanGraphs’ projections for MLB‘s top teams in 2017 looked like this:

It’s advised to take these figures with a grain or two of salt. But if we’re going to read into them—and we are—the general idea on display isn’t totally unbelievable.

The Cubs can look to Albert Almora and Kyle Schwarber to replace Dexter Fowler’s defense and offense in the aggregate, but his departure left them without a leadoff hitter. Wade Davis is arguably as good of a closer as Aroldis Chapman, but he’s not markedly better.

Elsewhere in the bullpen, the addition of Koji Uehara may be offset by the loss of Travis Wood. The Cubs have added Brian Duensing to fill his shoes, but he likely won’t match Wood’s extreme lefty-slaying ability. Based on his track record, Mike Montgomery, who is stepping into Jason Hammel’s rotation spot, provides no real gain and another loss for the bullpen.

While the Cubs have made seemingly no improvements, the Dodgers have made at least one big one.

Their starting rotation wasn’t an abomination in 2016, but it was a source of consternation for much of the year. Kenta Maeda was the one guy who stayed healthy and consistent. Clayton Kershaw was brilliant when he pitched, but a back injury limited him to 21 starts. Hill was excellent after he came over from the Oakland A’s in a deadline trade, but he made only six starts. Elsewhere, it was a revolving door of starters who had varying degrees of success.

It should be a different story in 2017. If nothing else, the Dodgers can rest easy knowing their ace is OK.

“I had an injury, and it’s not injured anymore, so now you keep going,” Kershaw told Ken Gurnick of MLB.com last week.

If Kershaw is his usual self and Hill makes at least 20 starts, the Dodgers will have one of the best one-two punches in the majors for most of 2017. After that, they’ll have Maeda’s reliability and healthy versions of Scott Kazmir, Alex Wood and Brandon McCarthy. They also have quite the wild card in Julio Urias, who quietly excelled in 2016 after taking a minute to find his footing in the majors.

As such, there could be something to the early projection that the Dodgers will have the best starting pitching in the league in 2017. The club’s lineup and bullpen, meanwhile, should be no worse than they were in 2016.

The former only has a hole at second base, where Chase Utley left a relatively low bar to clear. And by retaining Jansen, Los Angeles ensured games will continue to flow to one of the sport’s best relief pitchers.

The CliffsNotes version: The 2017 Dodgers will be a lot like the 2016 Dodgers, except without the starting pitching woes. That plus the non-upgrades in Chicago could close the talent gap between the two teams.

At least on paper, anyway. But while that may not mean much for the regular season, a potential postseason matchup is a different story.

The power of the postseason is its ability to magnify everything, including all the little details of each team’s roster. That tends to turn things that are mere nitpicks in the regular season into fatal flaws in October.

Which takes us back to the Dodgers’ loss to the Cubs in the NLCS.

One of the flaws Chicago exploited was Los Angeles’ lack of quality bullpen depth underneath Jansen. It had been good enough to that point, but the Cubs revealed the middle-relief parade of Joe Blanton, Pedro Baez, Ross Stripling and others to be about as unspectacular as you’d expect a parade of those names to be. They surrendered 18 runs in nine innings of work.

With only Vidal Nuno joining the mix this winter, this issue still needs solving. The free-agent market still has solid options (Greg Holland, Brad Ziegler, Sergio Romo, Joe Smith) who could help.

The bigger issue in need of attention, though, is the Dodgers’ weakness against left-handed pitching.

It was punctuated by an MLB-low OPS against southpaws in the regular season, and it bit them again in the NLCS. The Dodgers offense was undone by its lack of power, and Baseball Savant shows the problem was worse against Chicago’s lefties (.277 SLG%) than its righties (.320 SLG%).

The Dodgers have added Darin Ruf and his .921 career OPS against lefties, but that’s only one part-time bat in a sea of mostly left-handed hitters. Their payroll may be too overextended for a run at any of the free-agent options who could help, but the trade market includes some affordable alternatives: Brian Dozier and Ryan Braun, for example.

If the Dodgers want to leave good enough alone, they’ll enter 2017 with a team that should deliver another 90-plus win season and NL West title. But if the idea is to win the World Series, they need a team that can get through the Cubs.

For that, just a little bit more is required.

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

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It looks as though the New York Yankees‘ offseason spending could remain dormant for the rest of the winter; however, veteran outfielder Brett Gardner‘s name has emerged in trade talks. 

Continue for updates. 

Yankees Shopping Gardner

Tuesday, Dec. 13

According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Yankees have continued to “gauge interest” in Gardner in an attempt to cut salary. 

The 33-year-old is owed $23 million over the next two seasons, which are the final portions of his four-year, $52 million deal, per Spotrac. 

Gardner has spent each of his first nine MLB seasons with the Yankees, compiling a career .264 batting average and .346 on-base percentage as a bat near the top of the lineup. 

While his power numbers fluctuated from 17 home runs in 2015 to just seven in 2016, Gardner can still add speed on the basepaths and in a corner outfield spot. That could make him an attractive trade option to teams looking for a veteran spark.

Shedding his deal would be a step in the right direction for New York to get under the $197 million luxury-tax threshold for 2018, which is a goal of owner Hal Steinbrenner, according to Sherman. 

The Yankees were busy, though, around and during the winter meetings, signing veteran outfielder Matt Holliday to a one-year, $13 million deal and closer Aroldis Chapman to a five-year, $86 million contract. 

Per Sherman, that has the Yankees hovering near a $210 million payroll heading into 2017, which makes the prospects of adding another reliever like Boone Logan or Brad Ziegler to join Chapman and setup man Dellin Betances unlikely unless they can get a contract like Gardner’s off the books. 

Follow @JoePantorno on Twitter.

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