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As of this writing, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a glaring hole at second base. Hence the persistent trade rumors surrounding the Minnesota Twins‘ Brian Dozier.

Whether the Dodgers acquire Dozier or someone else, the odds are good they’ll add a middle infielder of note before the start of spring training.

For now, though, let’s run down the existing depth chart and look at some key players waiting in the wings.

In addition to second base, there are question marks at the back end of the rotation and some uncertainty in the outfield. However, this roster looks strong enough to compete for a fifth straight National League West crown and the Dodgers’ first championship in more than a quarter-century.

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Alex Reyes’ journey has already taken him from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic to the top of prospect rankings and finally to the major leagues in 2016.

Next stop: the top of the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation.

OK, so that’s not set in stone. With a healthy Lance Lynn set to rejoin Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Mike Leake and Michael Wacha in 2017, the Cardinals have five proven starters for five spots. That’s a tough nut for a 22-year-old with only 46 major league innings to crack.

The Cardinals did remove a key barrier in Reyes’ way when they traded Jaime Garcia in December, however. After that, Mike Matheny declared the young right-hander would get his shot.

“He should be a starting pitcher,” the skipper said, via MLB.com. “We’ll see how it plays out through spring training. There are certain guys who have slotted innings set for them, and Alex is going to have those. He’s earned that.”

No kidding. With a 1.57 ERA in 12 appearances (five starts) last year, Reyes was a shot in the arm for a Cardinals pitching staff that had tumbled from the high perch it had occupied in 2015. That’s pretty good as far as first impressions go, and it wasn‘t even enough work to strip Reyes of his rookie status. 

That means Reyes is technically still a prospect. And my, what a prospect he is.

While there was some disagreement about the league’s best hitting prospect going into 2017, Reyes ran away as the best pitching prospect in MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo’s poll of MLB executives.

“I don’t even know who else is a candidate,” said one pro scouting director. “Reyes has the best combo of stuff and results with the stuff.”

Reyes’ stuff has had scouts drooling for years. Baseball America‘s report on him last year, for example, remarked he featured “closer stuff” for six or seven innings when he was at his best. That included a fastball that could climb as high as 100 mph and a 12-to-6 curveball described as a “true hammer.”

In the minors, Reyes used his weapons to strike out 12.1 batters per nine innings. But it wasn’t until he was promoted in August that fans got a proper introduction to his stuff.

It must have been love at first sight for many, as Reyes pitched a 1-2-3 inning that featured a couple of 101 mph fastballs in his debut:

Per Brooks Baseball, Reyes was no longer flirting with triple digits by the time the Cardinals were stretching him out as a starter and long reliever in September. But he was still sitting in the mid-90s. And overall, Baseball Prospectus vouches that Reyes showed a fastball that ranked in the top 10 in average velocity (96.7 mph) and whiff-per-swing rate (26.9 percent).

As for Reyes’ other notorious offering, he used his curveball sparingly by throwing it only about 8 percent of the time. However, the curves he did throw lived up to their “hammer” reputation by ranking here in downward action, per Baseball Prospectus:

1. Alex Reyes: -11.57 in.
2. Mike Fiers: -11.33 in.
3. Seth Lugo: -11.18 in.
4. Chris Tillman: -10.52 in.
5. Evan Scribner: -10.44 in.

That’s what Reyes’ ball-on-string curve looks like in numbers. And now for moving pictures:

The revelation of Reyes’ breakthrough, though, was the quality of two supposedly inferior pitches. 

Although scouts didn’t ignore his changeup during his journey to The Show, the consensus was that it lagged behind his heater and hook. But it was an effective go-to pitch for him against major league hitters. It accounted for 23.7 percent of his offerings and held batters to a .172 average.

Contrary to those of his fastball and curveball, the measurements on Reyes’ changeup aren’t eye-popping. Its effectiveness is more a matter of location and deception. Reyes showed an ability to (mostly) spot it on the glove-side corner of the strike zone, where it worked well in tandem with (mostly) high fastballs because…

Well, let’s let the man himself explain.

“I feel like that [the changeup is] more of a swing-and-miss pitch for me now because hitters have to be geared up for the fastball,” he told J.J. Cooper of Baseball America.

The other pitch that served Reyes surprisingly well is the slider that he broke out in September. He threw it more often than his curveball that month and limited hitters to a .143 average with it.

This is another pitch that doesn’t have otherworldly measurements. But albeit in a limited sample, he showed it’s the breaking pitch he has better control of. Whereas his curveballs were all over the place, his sliders routinely broke off the glove-side corner.

That means Reyes impressed with four pitches from either a sheer electricity perspective or from a command-and-sequencing perspective. With an arsenal that loaded, it’s no wonder opposing hitters were so overwhelmed.

It would’ve been good enough if Reyes had dazzled only with his rate of 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings. But even his solid .283 batting average on balls in play doesn’t capture how well he managed contact. Per Baseball Savant, the average exit velocity off him was an MLB-low 84.9 mph.

Since hitting Reyes’ stuff is such a challenge, arguably the best strategy against him is for hitters to keep their bats on their shoulders.

Although Reyes’ stuff was as advertised last season, it’s less encouraging that his control was also as advertised. He walked 4.6 batters per nine innings in the minors and stayed that course by walking 4.5 per nine innings in the majors.

That’s no way to be efficient, and it also lessens his margin for error. Clearly, this defect needs fixing.

However, that doesn’t seem to be a major undertaking.

Reyes isn’t walking batters because he’s a small dude with a high-effort delivery. Even his listed size of 6’3″ and 175 pounds seems conservative, and he shows his strength and athleticism with every pitch. He puts as much effort into throwing a baseball as Average Joe does into changing the channel.

As Christopher Crawford and George Bissell of Baseball Prospectus noted upon Reyes’ arrival, his challenge is maintaining a consistent arm slot. That should be a matter of making simple tweaks rather than undergoing a major mechanical overhaul.

That’s to say Reyes isn’t far away from the leap between dominating in a small sample size and dominating over a larger one.

I’ll leave it to Wainwright (via Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal) to explain what that means:

As everyone will have noticed by now, there’s no argument here.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, Brooks Baseball and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. 

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Maybe Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez and others who were on the cutting edge of the performance-enhancing-drug era eventually will be voted into the Hall of Fame by the general electorate. Maybe last month’s election of former commissioner Bud Selig will be the tipping point.

But that’s nonsense.

And it’s largely a non sequitur.

One new “narrative” to emerge this winter in advance of next Wednesday’s announcement of the 2017 Hall of Fame voting results is this: If Selig, who oversaw the game when it reeked of cheaters who distorted the record book, is in the Hall of Fame, then it gives voters who in the past have not supported the steroid crowd the green light to reverse course.

But it isn’t that clear-cut. Selig, like fellow Hall of Famer Tony La Russa three years ago, whose greatest managerial successes came with PED-enhanced players in his lineups, was put into the Hall of Fame by a small, 16-person veterans committee, not by the general electorate.

I was not on those committees and did not cast a vote for them. So why should that compel me to cast votes for those who clearly cheated the game and their fellow players when I haven’t done that in any of my previous 17 years of voting?

Another issue, and one I believe too few people understand when it comes to Hall of Fame voting, is that voting is a one-man (or woman), one-ballot exercise. This isn’t groupthink, and it isn’t (and shouldn’t be) some sort of organized movement to try to push a single agenda through.

Personally, as long as the so-called “character clause” is included in election rules (“Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which he played”), I do not intend to vote for those buried in steroid guilt or under a mountain of circumstantial evidence.

Now, if some of those players wind up being voted into the Hall despite my stance, that’s how the breaking ball breaks. If Bonds, or Clemens, or anyone else shows up one day on the stage at Cooperstown, if that’s the will of the voters, then it will not be a time to rant and rave and throw fire and brimstone. It will be a time to celebrate them, even if some of us disagree with the choice.

This is a miserably difficult topic, and like so many other issues in this country right now, it is a bitterly divisive topic. There are no foolproof, correct answers. But I believe each voter must come to terms with their conscience. Some of those whom I respect the most in the baseball-writing business, including some close friends of mine within that group, vote for known steroid users and always have. I disagree with them, and they with me. And they have very good reasons, and I respect their opinions. That’s life. Not everyone is going to see things your way.

Some voters, who rightfully are uncomfortable with the baseball writers’ doubling as the “morality police,” have asked the Hall of Fame to issue guidelines regarding the vote. Hall officials have responded that they are very pleased with the way the writers have conducted the voting over the decades and are refraining from issuing guidelines.

To me, however, the Hall issued its guidelines long ago with the aforementioned character clause. If one day the tide turns and I’m in the minority, so be it. If one day Bonds, Clemens and Ramirez are elected to the Hall, a part of me will be relieved and happy, because it’s not right for a Hall of Fame not to include the very best players. But it’s less right to turn a blind eye to the cheating, and that includes everyone from the commissioner to the owners to the players’ union and the media.

In the end, as with any vote, you must assess what’s important, assimilate the information and come to a conclusion in which you can look yourself in the mirror. So that’s a big part, as always, of how I filled in this year’s Hall of Fame ballot.

Jeff Bagwell

This is his seventh year on the ballot, and it is the first time I voted for him. Bagwell, along with Mike Piazza (who was elected to the Hall last year), is one of those gray-area players about whom there has been some steroid suspicion but never any proof. As such, from his first year on the ballot, I wrote that I would wait a few years before voting for him while waiting for any new information to surface. It hasn’t, and he’s never been formally linked to steroids. As Jay Jaffe notes in his always essential JAWS Hall of Fame evaluation method, Bagwell ranks as the second-best first baseman in the post-World War II era.

Bagwell missed election last year by a mere 15 votes, and after Piazza’s induction, Bagwell should clear the bar this year. He won the 1994 NL MVP award and ranked in the top 10 in voting five other times, including finishing in the top five twice. His career on-base percentage of .408 ranks 39th all-time.

Vladimir Guerrero

Maybe the best bad-ball hitter in baseball history, Guerrero could do damage to pitches an inch or two off the ground, an inch or two over his head or anywhere in the strike zone. He was a marvel to watch, easily one of the most dominant hitters of his era, doing it for both average (.318 career average) and power (449 career homers).

He hit .300 or higher in 13 seasons, including 12 in a row from 1997 to 2008. He hit 30 or more homers eight times and knocked in 100 or more runs 10 times. Before his legs started to deteriorate, Guerrero also put together two 30-homer/30-steal seasons (and he had one 39-homer/40-steal season).

He led the league in intentional walks five times, signifying how respected he was by rival clubs. As B/R colleague Danny Knobler notes, Guerrero in 2006 compiled as many unintentional walks as intentional walks (25 of each), which doesn’t make him overly friendly to modern analytics. Nor does his play in right field measure up that well in the advanced stats field, though he made up for part of that with his exceptionally powerful arm. Nevertheless, Guerrero’s power and dominance put him on my ballot.

Trevor Hoffman

Tough crowd, the voters, when it comes to closers. It was utterly predictable last year that Hoffman would not reach the 75 percent threshold needed for election based on history: Nobody who pitched exclusively as a reliever throughout his entire career has ever been elected to the Hall on his first ballot. John Smoltz and Dennis Eckersley each worked as a starter at times during his career. Hoffman never did.

That said, whatever your feeling on closers—and I’ve graded them harshly in the past (I did not vote for Lee Smith, and I do not vote for Billy Wagner)—601 career saves is a staggering number. Hoffman is a Hall of Famer; the only question is how long it will take him to reach 75 percent of the vote. This year? Next year? Stay tuned.

Jeff Kent

I voted for Kent because his 351 career home runs as a second baseman rank him as the all-time leader at the position. That said, I’m still not 100 percent comfortable with myself for having started voting for him a couple of years ago. He played in an offense-oriented era in which new ballparks became more hitter-friendly, and defensively he was no gem.

As I wrote last year, he was a very good player. But one of the best of all time? Some numbers suggest yes. But body of work overall…he’s borderline, no question.

Edgar Martinez

Along with Bagwell, the biggest change in my ballot. This is the first time I’ve voted for Martinez, and it is his eighth year on the ballot. Not sure if that’s a him-problem or a me-problem—maybe a little of both.

Bottom line: In the past, I withheld my vote because, to me, if you’re a one-dimensional player (read: closer or DH), your numbers had better be off the chart in whatever area you specialize. Martinez’s traditional numbers are not. He finished with only 2,247 hits and 309 homers. Both are light in terms of a DH and the Hall.

Yet every year, Martinez is one of the guys I have agonized over. Three things spurred me to change my mind late in the game on him.

First, his .418 career on-base percentage. While the homers don’t knock your socks off, that on-base percentage does. He ranks 21st in history. That’s the number that kept nagging at me during the years I did not vote for him. It’s sensational.

Second, Martinez’s 1995 Division Series against the New York Yankees was one for the ages. He hit .571 (12-for-21), reached base 18 times in five games and knocked in 10 runs. Furthermore, his 11th–inning double clinched the series for the Mariners in Game 5, which helped turn Seattle into a baseball city and spurred taxpayers to vote for what today is Safeco Field. It was one of the greatest baseball moments in the history of Seattle, and while that does not fit into your traditional statistics, there should be room in the Hall of Fame for that kind of history.

Third, too many of Martinez’s peers during the time in which he played have told me over the years that he was the best hitter they ever saw, or that he should be a Hall of Famer, or some combination of the above.

The latest came last spring during a long conversation with Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. I was working on a piece on Red Sox DH David Ortiz in advance of his retirement and spoke with Reggie about Ortiz. It was during that conversation when Jackson, unsolicited, passionately told me that not only does Ortiz belong in the Hall, but so does Martinez.

All of this, over all of these years, has conspired to convince me that maybe I’ve been wrong in not voting for Martinez, and I’m fixing that now.

Fred McGriff

One of the greatest hitters of his era, McGriff‘s biggest problem is that the guys who were gobbling steroids during the 1990s put up enough cartoon numbers to shove McGriff into the shadows and relegate him, nearly, to forgotten-man status. Maybe if he had hit just seven more homers to reach that big ol‘ round number of 500, he would get more Hall of Fame support. As it is, he checked in at just 20.9 percent of the vote last year, far below the 75 percent needed.

Still, 493 homers make a pretty good case. He ranks 28th all-time, and as I wrote last year of McGriff, remove some steroids frauds from the list and he comes close to cracking the all-time top 20. Not a slam-dunk Hall of Famer, to be sure, but borderline. And borderline enough that I would vote for him.

Mike Mussina

Time and place, to me, make Mussina more of a candidate than you might think. That time and place were…the 1990s and the 2000s, and the American League East. Pitching in a loaded division against some of the best New York Yankees teams of all time, and against many other bashers, and then pitching for the Yankees against historically good Boston Red Sox clubs, and more bashers, Mussina compiled 270 wins and a sterling 3.68 ERA. He was as consistent as a metronome, compiling 11 seasons of 15 or more victories.

While I know wins aren’t as sexy as they once were based on today’s analytics, to rack up that many means Mussina was in the game enough to make a difference on a heck of a lot of occasions. We know starting pitchers have been underrepresented in Cooperstown since the inception of the DH, and Mussina certainly is deserving.

Tim Raines

Raines is the best leadoff hitter this side of Rickey Henderson, and his .385 career on-base percentage is good enough to play on any team. His stolen-base rate of 84.7 percent ranks second-best all-time among those with 300 or more attempts.

Raines received 69.8 percent of the vote last year, and he’s still got some running to do: This is his 10th and final year on the ballot. If he doesn’t bump up to 75 percent of the vote, his Cooperstown fate will be left in the hands of future veterans committees. Here’s hoping he cruises into one more base this winter—a plaque in Cooperstown.

Close Calls

A few words about my near misses:

Curt Schilling

This has zero to do with his politics and everything to do with his middling 216 career victories and a whole lot of mediocre seasons. I know some numbers (specifically, his strikeouts) point to Cooperstown, but I would take Jack Morris in his prime any day over Schilling in his prime. And if there is no place in the Hall for Morris…

Ivan Rodriguez

One of the best catchers of all time without a doubt, Rodriguez under most circumstances would be a slam-dunk Hall of Famer. But for now, I’ve got him in a holding pattern, similar to where I had Piazza and Bagwell. In his book Juiced, Jose Canseco details injecting Rodriguez with PEDs. Pudge has since denied taking PEDs, so here’s another gray area.

Because of that, I’m holding off for a bit, and let’s see if any new information emerges and what Rodriguez says about it. He will be on the ballot for 10 years; I’d rather wait a bit for reasons I just stated rather than rush to vote him in right away.

Larry Walker

I looked hard at Walker, and while he’s very close, in my book he falls short of being a Hall of Famer. His offensive numbers were good, especially in the Coors Field years, but he was injured and off the field far too often. During his 17-year career, Walker played in as many as 150 games once, and he played in as many as 140 games just four times. I look at Walker and I see a very good player who could have been great. I do not see a Hall of Famer. His great moments simply weren’t great long enough.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Chicks, they tell us, dig the long ball. The question is, do MLB offseason shoppers?

So far this winter, the answer has been a resounding “meh.”

Edwin Encarnacion, arguably the best pure power hitter on the market, signed with the Cleveland Indians for three years and $60 million with a $25 million team option and $5 million buyout.

That’s a decent payday, but it’s well below the four years and $92 million MLB Trade Rumors projected. 

At least Encarnacion (42 home runs in 2016) found a home. As of this writing, a busload of sluggers remain unemployed with just over a month until pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

Between Mark Trumbo (47 home runs), Chris Carter (41 home runs) and Mike Napoli (34 home runs), two of 2016’s top-seven home run hitters and three of the top 18 are flapping in the free-agent breeze.

Add Brandon Moss (28 home runs), Michael Saunders (24 home runs), Jose Bautista (22 home runs), Pedro Alvarez (22 home runs) and Adam Lind (20 home runs), and you’re looking at 238 unsigned homers.

“It’s a slow-developing market this year,” Baltimore Orioles general manager Dan Duquette said in a contender for understatement of the offseason, per Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe.

Part of the issue is supply and demand. In addition to those names, there are an array of power hitters potentially available via trade, including the Minnesota Twins’ Brian Dozier (42 home runs), the Chicago White Sox’s Todd Frazier (40 home runs) and the Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun (30 home runs), to name three.

What about the “demand” part of the equation, though? Aren’t we living in the post-steroid era (or at least the steroid-testing era), when the ability to launch the ball over the fence is a notable, marketable skill?

Up until recently, yes. The last two seasons, not so much.

In 2000, at the apex of the steroid era, there were 5,693 home runs hit across both leagues. By 2014, that number had plummeted to 4,186, the lowest total in nearly two decades.

Then, in 2015, the four-bagger came roaring back to the tune of 4,909 homers, a 17.3 percent jump. Last season, the total rose to 5,610, just shy of the 2000 high-water mark.

If it was juiced players then, could it be juiced baseballs now?

“Some players—not just on our team, we were talking to other players in general—we wondered if the cork was different,” Orioles closer Zach Britton said in July, per Jerry Crasnick and David Schoenfield of ESPN.com. “I know MLB wanted to get more offense in the game, so you can do that without changing a strike zone or something in general? You can somehow change the cork maybe.”

Or maybe performance-enhancing drugs are still prevalent, with newer PEDs outpacing MLB’s testing protocols?

Commissioner Rob Manfred dismissed both notions at his 2016 All-Star Game press conference. 

“We think it has to do with the way pitchers pitch and the way hitters are being taught to play the game,” Manfred told reporters. “You’ve seen some unusual developments in terms of home run hitters being up in the lineup to get them more at-bats. So we think it has more to do with the game this time around, because we’re comfortable we’re doing everything we can on the performance-enhancing drugs front.”

Whatever the cause, the trend is undeniable. Home runs are surging in a big way. Home runs hitters, by extension, are no longer a prized commodity.

It’s telling that Yoenis Cespedes is the only player to land a nine-figure deal this winter. You could argue the Mets were desperate to rescue a dubious offense when they re-upped Cespedes for four years and $110 million. You’d be right.

But Cespedes (31 home runs) is more than a basher. The 31-year-old Cuban is an excellent overall athlete with a strong arm who grades as an above-average left fielder. He can even play center field in a pinch, though his skills there have diminished.

Trumbo, Carter, Napoli and most of the other names listed above are one-dimensional sluggers with minimal defensive skills. Encarnacion, likewise, is a designated hitter who can be stashed at first base. That almost assuredly accounts for the disparity between his and Cespedes’ contracts.

Free-agent position players in general have fallen behind their mound-straddling counterparts, as Cafardo noted:

The priority for most teams is pitching, both starting and relief, so teams tend to take care of what they deem most important first. Teams try to promote from within on offense as much as they can. They’d rather take a chance on a kid than pay a small fortune for a veteran. This isn’t always the best way to go about it, but it’s how it is done.

Every hitter mentioned here will be employed before Opening Day. Prevalence aside, a home run is still the best outcome a big league hitter can hope for in any given at-bat. Chicks probably still dig ’em.

When it comes to maximizing a paycheck in today’s MLB, though, the long ball alone isn’t enough.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

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The Houston Astros may have disappointed in 2016 after their big coming-out party in 2015, but don’t worry. They could be a juggernaut in 2017 if everything goes right.

That entails a lot of things, of course. But perhaps the most pressing matter at hand is Carlos Correa living up to his potential with the stick.

That might read like a segue into a finger-wagging segment in which Correa is derided for having a bad sophomore year after winning the American League Rookie of the Year in 2015. But the thing is, he was mostly quite good in 2016.

Correa played in 153 games and put up an .811 OPS with 20 home runs and 13 stolen bases. Per FanGraphs‘ WAR stat, he was a top-five shortstop. Per Baseball-Reference.com’s WAR stat, he only narrowly missed being the best shortstop in the league:

1. Corey Seager: 6.1
2. Carlos Correa: 5.9

By this measure, the 22-year-old already owns 10.1 career WAR. That’s the fourth-most in history for a shortstop in his first two seasons. This is all happening just a few years after Correa was the No. 1 pick in the 2012 draft. Nobody can say the dude’s been a bust.

But if you feel like you still need to see more from Correa going into 2017, know this: You’re not alone.

While his 2016 season was a success on the whole, it did fall short of expectations in the one area where Correa showed the most potential as a rookie. After posting an .857 OPS with 22 home runs in only 99 games in 2015, it was a letdown to watch him hit two fewer home runs with an OPS 46 points lower despite playing in 54 more games.

The bright side is that Correa didn’t get reality checks across the board.

His batting average stayed roughly the same, and his on-base percentage actually got better. Two related stories involve him sticking with an advanced approach and making even harder contact. According to Baseball Savant, Correa‘s average exit velocity went from 90.8 to 91.8 mph.

In light of that, it raises one’s eyebrows that power is where Correa took the biggest step backward in 2016. He went from a .512 slugging percentage to a .451 slugging percentage, a 61-point downturn.

Some of that was caused by circumstances beyond Correa‘s control. Although he played in all but nine of Houston’s games, he hinted in September that he wasn’t a picture of health throughout 2016.

“Some of those things people don’t know,” Correa told Eno Sarris of FanGraphs. “Some parts of the body are hurting so you have to lay off some things and deal with some things. It’s something that people don’t know, but obviously you know.”

Sarris compared the timing of Correa‘s two most notable injuries—a rolled ankle in June and a sprained left shoulder in September—with how well he was driving the ball. He found that Correa‘s injuries correlated not just with downturns in his exit velocity but also with downturns in his launch angle. Put simply: His injuries made it difficult for him to drive the ball.

Knowing this, Correa reversing the power decline that marred an otherwise successful season in 2016 could be a simple matter of staying healthy in 2017. So there’s that, anyway.

But since suggesting a ballplayer not get hurt in a 162-game season is like suggesting a rock star not get wasted while on tour, let’s look at some real-world solutions to Correa‘s power conundrum.

It’s a good sign that Correa upped his overall exit velocity in 2016 despite occasional injury-related downturns. However, he couldn’t do the same with his average launch angle. It was 6.5 degrees in 2015 and 6.5 degrees in 2016.

For perspective, Rob Arthur of FiveThirtyEight found the sweet spot for power hitting to be around 25 degrees. Some power hitters (i.e., Kris Bryant, Brandon Belt and Chris Carter) averaged fairly close to that mark in 2016. Correa, however, was on the opposite side of the spectrum.

One of the effects of Correa‘s low launch angle is that much of his hard contact is wasted on the ground. Correa hit ground balls 50.1 percent of the time he put the ball in play in 2016. That’s not an ideal rate for such a powerful hitter.

Fixing this won’t be simple, as this actually points to the true nature of Correa‘s swing. Even in praising him for having plus raw power back in 2015, Baseball America‘s Vince Lara-Cinisomo also noted his swing lacked loft and could potentially struggle to produce consistent power from season to season.

Still, never say never.

It’s not unheard of for a hitter to make changes that improve his launch angle. Jose Altuve, Correa‘s double-play partner in Houston, did it last year. Ditto Mark Trumbo, who led baseball in home runs. And Freddie Freeman, who had a long-awaited power breakout.

If Correa makes an effort to alter his swing mechanics in a way that would make it easier to get under the ball, he could follow in those guys’ footsteps in 2017. 

Failing that, he could always go back to what worked in 2015.

While Correa‘s overall swing rates basically remained static from 2015 to 2016, there was a noticeable change in his plan of attack. Courtesy of Brooks Baseball, these were his swings in 2015:

And these were his swings in 2016:

The difference isn’t subtle. As a rookie, Correa covered the whole strike zone. Last season, he went hunting on the zone’s inner half.

Not surprisingly, this made Correa vulnerable to whiffs on pitches away. That would have been an acceptable trade-off if his new approach brought the expected benefit of more pull power. But it didn’t. While he did pull the ball more, upping his pull percentage from 35.5 to 39.0, his slugging percentage to his pull side decreased from .721 to .587.

This wasn’t an exit-velocity problem. Correa‘s average exit velocity on the zone’s inner two-thirds and beyond shot up from 91.0 to 93.0 mph. But since his launch angle in these areas didn’t budge, that didn’t translate into more slugging in those areas.

Going into pull-power mode also resulted in Correa neglecting one of his primary strengths at the plate: his opposite-field power. 

The Baseball America report mentioned above noted Correa earned comparisons to Albert Pujols for his “ability to hammer the ball to the opposite field.” That ability remained alive and well in 2016 but was used sparingly:

Bottom line: Correa didn’t necessarily have the wrong idea in chasing more pull power in 2016, but it did more harm than good. If he’s not going to drive more balls by upping his launch angle, he should at least recalibrate his power approach to all fields rather than just one.

Of course, Correa could change nothing from 2016 and still be a well above average hitter. His .811 OPS from this past season equated to an adjusted OPS+ of 123, meaning he was 23 points better than the average hitter.

And yet there’s also no question Correa can be significantly better than that. He’s proved he’s an advanced hitter capable of working good at-bats and making consistent hard contact. All he needs to do is make his power show up more consistently. There are a number of avenues to that end available to him.

If he finds any one of them in 2017, just watch his numbers rise.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant unless otherwise noted/linked. 

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With slightly more than a month remaining before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, there’s theoretically time for every MLB team and unsigned free agent to rescue their offseason.

Let’s get real, though. Some clubs and players have aced the winter, while others are sifting desperately through the hot-stove coals or looking back with regret.

We’re not going to highlight every offseason winner and loser, but here’s a fresh batch from the last few weeks to hold you over till actual baseball begins.

In some cases, losers could still reverse their plight. In others, well, not so much.

Tap the clay off your cleats and proceed when ready.

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Spring training is on the horizon—squint and you can see it through the winter haze. Still, every MLB contender has weaknesses to address before bats and balls start cracking and the smell of cut grass wafts on the breeze.

For some, it’s minor tinkering. For others, it’s a glaring hole to be filled. Everyone needs something, however. It’s the nature of the offseason.

As we wait for the hot stove to kick out more sparks, let’s run down the list. Again, we’re focusing only on legitimate contenders, not sellers or franchises in the midst of a rebuild. (There were admittedly a few borderline cases; sorry, Arizona Diamondbacks fans.) Also, to reiterate, we’re picking one pressing need per club.

Tap some pine tar off your helmet and step into the box when ready.

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How much juice can the National Baseball Hall of Fame hold? We’re going to find out.

The sea change in the voting for the Hall of Fame can’t be ignored. It first became apparent when Mike Piazza, long suspected of needing performance-enhancing drugs to slug more homers than any other catcher, got into Cooperstown with 83 percent of the vote in 2016.

Now the revolution is projected to continue in 2017.

The latest Hall of Fame class won’t be revealed until January 18, but all the votes were in on December 31. And thanks to Ryan Thibodaux, the tireless Samaritan who aggregates Hall of Fame ballots, we already know how the votes are trending:

With the cutoff for induction set at 75 percent, Vladimir Guerrero is too close to call. Otherwise, it looks like congratulations will soon be in order for Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez.

This trio’s induction would draw applause from plenty but also raise eyebrows from others. Bags, Rock and Pudge come with big numbers but also with suspicion and/or baggage.

Bagwell was a muscly steroid-era slugger who admitted to using androstenedione to the Houston Chronicle (via Sports Illustrated‘s William Nack and Kostya Kennedy)—the stuff Mark McGwire was on.

Rodriguez, another steroid-era star, once gave a curiously vague response when he was asked about PEDs, per the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). Raines was in the back end of his career during the steroid era, but he did use cocaine during his prime with the Montreal Expos in the 1980s.

This is neither here nor there for those of us (hi there!) who see the scuzzier portions of baseball’s past not as parts to be shunned but as those to be discussed and examined. But all should be prepared for the rabble about to be raised by a small army of handwringers. They’ll echo the Hall of Fame’s insistence on integrity and character and wonder if nothing is sacred anymore.

A word to the hand-wringers: If you don’t like how those three are trending, you’d better not look at how Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are doing.

Bonds, baseball’s all-time home run king, and Clemens, its only seven-time Cy Young winner, debuted with just 36.2 and 37.6 percent of the vote in 2013. By last year, they had only climbed into the 40s.

Never mind the argument that Bonds and Clemens may be the greatest hitter and pitcher ever, respectively. This seemed to clarify that their status as poster boy 1A and 1B for the steroid era weighed more heavily.

But look! Now they’re tracking at darn near 70 percent. “How about that?” says Mel Allen’s ghost.

Although Bonds and Clemens will likely fall short of their current marks in the end, this is still writing on the wall that says their support is in for a major boost. With five years left on the ballot after this one, they finally have a light museum at the end of their tunnels.

Some things are random. Like lottery numbers. Or Bryce Harper’s year-to-year performance.

But Bonds and Clemens’ push to Cooperstown? That’s not random.

This is an effect of the Hall of Fame’s purging inactive baseball writers from the Baseball Writers Association of America voting bloc in 2015. That did away with a lot of older and out-of-touch voters, giving younger and more progressive voters more influence.

This is also an unintended consequence of the Hall of Fame’s welcoming legendary manager Tony La Russa in 2014 and former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig this year. Juiced players (McGwire included) helped the former win 2,728 games and three World Series. Juiced players did the latter a huge favor by putting on a show that erased the 1994-1995 strike from memory and ushered in an era of unfathomable prosperity.

Selig’s induction seems to be the real kicker for many voters. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports recently offered a sampling of their thoughts, with the consensus being it’s no longer fair to scorn the juiced-up labor of the steroid era while the beneficiaries of said juiced-up labor are going scot-free.

“When Bud was put in two weeks ago, my mindset changed,” veteran Philadelphia sportswriter Kevin Cooney wrote to Passan in an email. “If the commissioner of the steroid era was put into the HOF by a secret committee, then I couldn’t in good faith keep those two out any longer.”

Clearly, the line in the sand has been redrawn. That doesn’t just spell hope for Bonds and Clemens, but it also does so for other steroid-era stars gunning for Cooperstown. That’s you, Gary Sheffield and Sammy Sosa. 

As for you, Manny Ramirez…uh…hmmm…

OK, you’re a tough one.

It’s easy to miss Ramirez on this year’s ballot, but he’s there. And his numbers loom large. He hit 555 dingers in a 19-year career and is one of only 13 players to accumulate more than 9,000 plate appearances and post a slash line better than .300/.400/.500.

The only number that matters, though, is the 26.7 percent Ramirez is polling at.

There’s no big secret for why he’s struggling. Ramirez enjoyed success during and after the steroid era but missed the memo when the era ended. Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times reported in 2009 that Ramirez tested positive for PEDs in 2003. He was then busted and suspended for PEDs later that year. When he was caught again in 2011, he ducked the consequences by retiring.

Ramirez is the first superstar to have been caught riding dirty to appear on the ballot since Rafael Palmeiro in 2011. That doomed him to 11 percent of the vote that year and an early exit in his fourth year. Ramirez might last longer, but it looks like his fate will be the same.

Certainly, more players would have been caught and punished had there been rules and punishments during the steroid era. But it was a different time.

“There were no rules before 2004,” wrote Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “No signs in clubhouses banning PEDs. You were free to take whatever you desired with no testing, no penalties, nothing.”

The shorthand: There’s a difference between breaking “rules” and breaking rules. As MassLive’s Nick O’Malley‘s helpful compilation makes clear, this is a common refrain for voters regarding Ramirez.

Earth to Alex Rodriguez: This concerns you.

After retiring in 2016, Rodriguez isn’t due on the ballot until 2022. Like Ramirez, he’s an all-time great producer who had success during and after the steroid era. Also like Ramirez, he was on the 2003 list and later busted and suspended in 2014. 

For now, he’s screwed. As much as the Hall of Fame voters are loosening their standards for PED guys, they still have some standards. They came for Palmeiro and Ramirez. They’ll come for Rodriguez, too.

Unless, of course, another unexpected sea change comes along.

Before long, the effect of the Hall of Fame voting bloc’s getting younger and more progressive will go from minor to major. As Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated pointed out after A-Rod’s retirement, there will be an influx of analytically minded baseball writers starting in 2018.

If for no other reason than to reverse the effect of “small hall” thinking—MLB.com’s Mike Petriello has a good article out on that—these voters could be more inclined to vote for Ramirez and Rodriguez. Modern times need more representation in Cooperstown. Like it or not, they’re two of the biggest stars of modern times.

They also still have time to repair their images. Ramirez has already begun with his work with the Chicago Cubs. Rodriguez, meanwhile, played the good soldier on the field following his suspension and has since emerged as an extremely likable television analyst.

The other thing time can do is thin out the competition. In contrast to the tidal wave of superstars of recent years, the future should see only a slow drip of superstars onto the ballot. In the meantime, the 10-year limit will push some off the ballot. Others will get squeezed by the annual 10-player voting limit. Others still, such as Bonds and Clemens, will get voted in, leaving fewer titans to contend with.

This is better news for someone like David Ortiz, who was flagged for PEDs in 2003 but was never busted in 13 fruitful years after that, than it is for Ramirez and Rodriguez. But if nothing else, this is all basically Lloyd Christmas telling them there’s a chance.

For good or ill, the Hall of Fame’s days of just saying no to PED guys are over. We’re in new territory, and the task of charting it is just beginning.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. 

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It’s not easy to do what the New York Yankees have done. It’s even tougher to do what they have to do next. 

In this era in which total rebuilds are all the rage and tanking is rewarded, the Yankees rebuilt their farm system without also suffering through a 101-loss season (like the Chicago Cubs) or 324 losses over three campaigns (like the Houston Astros). Three years after MLB.com said they had none of the top 60 prospects in the game, they have five of the top 51.

That doesn’t even include Gary Sanchez, who turned 24 in December but graduated from prospect status when he hit 20 home runs in just 53 contests in 2016.

“The Yankees have the best (and deepest) farm system in the game,” MLB.com’s respected prospect analyst Jim Callis tweeted in December.

Great, so now they’ll start winning, just like the Cubs did?

Not so fast.

“This is still a building year for them,” said a National League scout who follows the Yankees and their farm system closely.

This is a building year, for sure, but it’s also a crucial year. For all the good work general manager Brian Cashman and his staff have done, and for all the patience managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner has shown, they haven’t yet built a team that can win.

You don’t win with a rotation headed by Masahiro Tanaka, Michael Pineda and CC Sabathia, with nothing but question marks behind them. You don’t win with uncertainty at so many positions in the field.

The Yankees didn’t build to win last year (when they were the only team not to sign a major league free agent), and they haven’t built to win this season (when they spent big on closer Aroldis Chapman and basically swapped Brian McCann for Matt Holliday as their designated hitter).

They’re trying to remain competitive while building for what could be a bright future, and so far, they’ve done a good job with that.

The Yankees haven’t won a postseason game since the 2012 Division Series—Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson and Raul Ibanez played in that game—but they also haven’t had a losing season since 1992.

But how do they get from here (impressive rebuild) to there (true championship contender)?

“The biggest issue they have, by far, is starting pitching,” the NL scout said. 

In his view, the Yankees need to find a way to trade for Jose Quintana, who may not be an ace but is a 27-year-old left-hander who is already a solid major league starter. The problem, the scout acknowledged, is that the Chicago White Sox have been looking for prospect-heavy deals like the ones they made for Chris Sale (with the Boston Red Sox) and Adam Eaton (with the Washington Nationals).

“They’re asking for blood and more,” the scout said.

The Yankees weren’t going to gut the farm system they just rebuilt to get Sale, so they certainly won’t do it for Quintana. If they can get him for what they deem a reasonable price, though, a Quintana trade would be a good place to start.

If not, then just wait.

With or without Quintana, the Yankees likely won’t win in 2017. There aren’t other obvious rotation upgrades available right now, but there will be. Unless he signs an extension, Jake Arrieta will be a free agent next winter. The Detroit Tigers would trade Justin Verlander for the right price. Clayton Kershaw can opt out of his contract after 2018. So can David Price.

If they don’t do anything stupid between now and then, the Yankees will be in position to chase whichever ones they want.

Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez are already gone. Sabathia’s contract expires after this season. The Yankees might get under the luxury-tax threshold next winter, and in any case, they have just $74.2 million committed to five players for 2019.

There will always be speculation the Yankees will spend a big chunk of that money to sign Bryce Harper, who can be a free agent after 2018. In December, my friend Ken Davidoff of the New York Post named Harper “most likely to be a Yankee” out of the 2018 class.

I don’t doubt it, but so much depends on what happens between now and then. Can Harper recover from a subpar 2016 season? Will a big-hitting outfielder even be the Yankees’ most pressing need then? Would they be better off signing Manny Machado to play third base? Will they need to spend all their money on pitching?

Things change from year to year, as the Yankees know only too well. Twelve months ago, Luis Severino was one of the stars of the rebuilding process, a front-end starting pitcher ready to blossom. Now, the Yankees aren’t even sure he’s a starting pitcher at all.

They need to find out more this year about Severino and about fellow young starters Luis Cessa, Chad Green and Bryan Mitchell. They need to see if the progress James Kaprielian showed in the Arizona Fall League was real and whether fellow pitching prospects Justus Sheffield and Domingo Acevedo develop as true rotation options.

They need to find out if Greg Bird is the answer at first base and whether Aaron Judge can overcome his swing-and-miss issues to be a dependable power source in right field. They need to watch shortstop Gleyber Torres and outfielder Clint Frazier—their reward for trading Chapman and Andrew Miller last summer.

“I think Frazier is playing right field for them before the year’s over,” the NL scout said. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if Torres plays second, with [Starlin] Castro moving to third.”

It’s nice for the Yankees and their fans to think about, because it’s fun to imagine talented players developing. But it’s also a challenge, because the next decisions will cost more (in money and/or prospects) and have bigger consequences.

Two decades ago, the Yankees made all the right decisions at a similar point. They kept Jeter and Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera while trading highly rated (but not as good) prospects like Matt Drews and Russ Davis.

They built a team that won year after year. They dream of doing it again.

The decisions they make over the next 24 months could determine whether it happens.

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

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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We’re several cold, soggy weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. Baseball remains an abstraction—a distant, beautiful dream.

Still, it’s not too early to gaze through the winter haze toward a few key spring position battles and make some premature predictions.

We’ll stay away from bullpen and fifth-starter skirmishes since the remaining free-agent targets are sure to reshape many of those. Instead, let’s zero in on three high-profile playoff hopefuls with question marks and logjams in the outfield and at the hot corner, keeping in mind that injuries and trades can quickly change the calculus. 

Until the hot stove crackles again, warm your hands with the following.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Outfield Glut

From a quantity standpoint, the Los Angeles Dodgers are set in the outfield. Their depth chart includes Joc Pederson, Yasiel Puig, Andrew Toles, Andre Ethier, Trayce Thompson and Scott Van Slyke.

Pederson, who turns 25 in April, hit 25 home runs last season and has the speed and on-base capabilities to evolve into a star player despite his .224 career MLB average.

After that, it’s a disconcerting jumble.

Puig is just 26 years old and possesses five-tool potential, but he’s a mercurial enigma whose future with the Dodgers was recently in grave danger. 

Toles is a great story, but he’s got a grand total of 115 big league plate appearances under his belt and was briefly out of baseball and working in a grocery store in 2015.

Ethier broke his leg in spring training and wound up posting a .208/.269/.375 slash line in 16 games. Thompson showed flashes in an 80-game stint but dealt with a back injury and hit .225. Van Slyke posted an identical .225 average in 52 games.

“There are only so many at-bats to go around,” Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts said, per ESPN.com’s Doug Padilla. “As we sit here with six or possibly seven guys who are major league players, those at-bats are hard to divvy up right now.”

Assuming Los Angeles doesn’t deal away and/or trade for an outfielder before the start of spring, who emerges?

Toles looks like the front-runner in left field, provided his .314/.365/.505 slash line wasn’t a mirage. 

In right, it’ll likely come down to Puig and Ethier. The latter turns 35 in April but was a solid contributor in 2015, hitting .294 with 14 home runs.

Don’t count out Puig, however. He posted a .900 OPS with four home runs in the season’s final month. The Dodgers would also benefit from his success no matter what.

Either Puig starts raking again and helps them win or he puts up strong numbers and they trade him for a significant haul at the deadline or next winter.

Prediction: The Dodgers begin the season with Toles in left, Pederson in center, Puig in right and Ethier and Thompson as the fourth and fifth outfielders.

The Boston Red Sox’s 3rd Base Gamble

The Boston Red Sox are rolling the dice at third base. They sent Travis Shaw to the Milwaukee Brewers in the deal that netted reliever Tyler Thornburg. They shipped out top prospect Yoan Moncada in the Chris Sale blockbuster.

That leaves Pablo Sandoval as the front-runner to win the job. It makes sense from a financial perspective; Sandoval is owed at least $59.8 million over the next four seasons. Boston wants him to succeed.

Whether he will is another matter. 

Sandoval was an unmitigated disappointment in 2015, his first year with Boston, slashing .245/.292/.366. Last season, he showed up to spring training notably out of shape and made just seven plate appearances before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery.

The Kung Fu Panda appears to have slimmed down. He’s just 30 years old and only a few seasons removed from All-Star-level production with the San Francisco Giants.

As Boston seeks to repeat as division champion and atone for last season’s division series sweep, however, a little competition at third seems like a good idea.

Enter Brock Holt, who made 11 regular-season starts for the Red Sox at third base in 2016 but started all three of Boston’s playoff games at the position. 

The 28-year-old hit .255 last season with seven home runs in 94 games. He may be best suited for a utility role. That’s undoubtedly where Boston will stick him if the svelte Sandoval delivers.

A scalding spring from Holt, however, coupled with further decline from Sandoval, could force the Red Sox’s hand.

Prediction: Sandoval wins the job, but Holt keeps nipping at his heels.

The Chicago Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber Conundrum

The Chicago Cubs are the World Series champs and one of the most complete teams in baseball.

They’ve also got some things to unravel in the outfield, particularly surrounding young slugger Kyle Schwarber.

It begins at second base, where Javier Baez is ready to take over. That pushes versatile veteran Ben Zobrist to left or right field and creates a traffic snarl at the other two outfield spots.

Center field could be a righty-lefty time-share between Albert Almora Jr. and newly signed Jon Jay. Despite his offensive futility, Jason Heyward checked in as the best defensive right fielder in the National League last season.

Where does that put Schwarber?

The 23-year-old grades out as a below-average defender at both corner outfield spots. He’s also had experience behind the dish but sits behind Willson Contreras and Miguel Montero on the depth chart.

Schwarber’s stick, however, is too stout for a part-time role. He hit 16 home runs in 69 games as a rookie in 2015 and returned from a devastating knee injury to post a .971 OPS in the 2016 World Series.

As Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune put it: “He’s dangerous to himself and his team in the outfield, but oh, that bat.” 

The obvious answer is that Cubs manager Joe Maddon likes to mix and match, so all the players mentioned will get time.

Assuming everyone stays healthy, however, someone will get squeezed.

Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein gave Heyward, who is owed more than $28 million in 2017, a vote of confidence. 

“We believe in Jason Heyward and his ability to tackle things head-on and make the necessary adjustments,” Epstein said, per Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago. “And I think you’re going to see a much different offensive player next year.”

Heyward can also play center field. He logged 171 innings there for the Cubs last season and posted four defensive runs saved. 

Again, Maddon will shuffle his chess pieces. If we’re betting on an Opening Day alignment, however…

Prediction: Zobrist will start in right field, Heyward in center and Schwarber in left—with ample mixing and matching.

All statistics courtesy of FanGraphs. All contract information courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com. 

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