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Veteran second baseman Howie Kendrick re-signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman confirmed the news.

According to Heyman, the deal is worth $20 million over two years. 

After spending nine years with the Los Angeles Angels, Kendrick was traded across town, spending the final year of his four-year, $33.5 million deal with the Dodgers. 

He encountered a nagging hamstring injury that forced him to miss 35 straight games, and he split time at second base toward the end of the season with the newly acquired Chase Utley. He still put up a .295 average with nine home runs and 54 RBI—numbers very similar to his career averages. 

Often the No. 2 hitter in a lineup due to his excellent bat control, Kendrick, 32, is a solid veteran presence who will continue to help the Dodgers. 

He was previously linked to the Washington Nationals, but they signed former New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy instead.

After Murphy signed, the market around Kendrick went quiet for more than a month. Then Heyman reported earlier Friday that the Arizona Diamondbacks, along with the Dodgers, were interested.

In staying with the Dodgers, Kendrick will be a great table-setter for Justin Turner, Adrian Gonzalez and L.A.’s other middle-of-the-order hitters.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com 

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Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully is getting honored with a street bearing his name that leads to Dodger Stadium.  

According to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday unanimously approved the moniker “Vin Scully Avenue” to be used in place of Elysian Park Avenue. 

Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo proposed the name change, according to Doug Padilla of ESPN.com.

Per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, even though Scully has resisted these kinds of accolades and tributes in the past, he was “on board” with this proposal. 

Dodgers President and CEO Stan Kasten released a statement regarding the proposal before it was voted on, per Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times: “There’s no better way to recognize such an iconic Dodger as Hall of Famer Vin Scully than naming a street after him. We appreciate Gil Cedillo and city officials bringing this to the forefront, and we look forward to the day when everyone can drive on Vin Scully Avenue when they enter Dodger Stadium.”

It would be hard to think of a better way to honor arguably the most iconic announcer in Major League Baseball history. The 88-year-old Scully, who has said 2016 will likely be his final season in the booth, has been with the Dodgers since 1950 and calls games by himself with no color commentator. 

Accolades are nothing new for Scully, who was given the Ford Frick Award from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. He’s one of the great voices in sports, always able to call games with a natural ease and tell stories from past decades that relate to what is happening on the field. 

Since it’s probably impossible to get the entire city of Los Angeles named after Scully, a street that leads directly to Chavez Ravine is a pretty good consolation prize. 

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The weekend-long Cubs Convention wouldn’t start until Friday, but Chicago Cubs fans were already on high alert at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Chicago on Tuesday night.

The former fan favorite was bundled up in an attempt to counter the freezing Chicago winter, but that didn‘t stop more than a few fans from recognizing and approaching him.

Ryne Sandberg? Billy Williams? Fergie Jenkins? Nope. It was the Cubs’ newest baseball operations assistant.

“I don’t feel like I’m a recognizable person, you know. I mean, I was the backup catcher who hit .190 two years ago here,” John Baker said. “But people were coming up to me with blown-up photographs and offering me beers. I understand that they’re extra excited right now, but at the same time, I was just blown away by how nice people have been to me.”

Ask any Cubs fan to rattle off some of the team’s recent backup catchers, and he or she may have trouble coming up with names such as Henry Blanco, Koyie Hill, Steve Clevenger and Dioner Navarro.

You’d be hard-pressed to find one who doesn’t remember Baker.

Understanding why he is so well-liked involves digging a bit deeper than the .192/.273/.231 line he posted over 208 plate appearances in 2014, his lone season on the North Side.

It was his reaction to this walk against Aroldis Chapman in the ninth inning of a tie game:

It was his playing the guitar for teammates in the dugout during a rain delay:

The one highlight that sticks out in the minds of many Cubs fans, though, was his extra-inning performance against the Colorado Rockies on July 29.

Baker entered that game in the top of the 16th inning not to catch, but to pitch for a Cubs team that had exhausted its bullpen.

A foul pop-up by Charlie Culberson, a walk to Drew Stubbs and a double-play ball off the bat of Cristhian Adames—just like that, Baker had thrown a scoreless inning.

He wasn‘t finished.

He led off the bottom of the 16th by drawing a walk, made his way around to third base and then raced home to score on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Starlin Castro.

With one epic slide, he had scored the winning run and made himself the winning pitcher, giving the smattering of fans who’d stuck around for the entirety of the six-hour, 27-minute marathon a reason to cheer.

Moments such as that left an indelible impression on the fanbase, and Baker was just as effective at making one on his teammates.

Current Cubs reliever Clayton Richard just missed playing with Baker in Chicago, but the two were teammates in San Diego during the 2012 season, when Richard saw firsthand the kind of impact Baker can make in a short period of time.

Baker was part of a catching trio that also included 23-year-old Yasmani Grandal, who was in his rookie season, and 28-year-old Nick Hundley, who was just starting to establish himself as an everyday backstop.

The 31-year-old Baker may not have been the primary catcher, but he found himself in the important role of mentor.

“He was a really good sounding board for Nick and Yasmani whenever they had questions or issues,” said Richard. “He was really another coach, and he was able to help those guys out quite a bit.” 

The 2012 season was the first time Richard and Baker played together, but Richard said the two had an immediate connection, and the statistics back that up.

“I think that there was a connection there at all times. There was an immediate line of communication that wasn‘t difficult at all to establish, and it didn‘t seem like there was a huge learning curve for each other,” said Richard.

“A lot of times with a new catcher, it takes a few starts or a few outings to get to know what each other likes and to make those adjustments. With him, it was very fluid and seemed very natural, and I think that’s a testament to how intelligent he is and how well he adapts to new situations.”

That adaptability will now be put to the test, as Baker’s new role in the front office is one new situation after another.

The week of the Cubs Convention was a perfect example. 

Prior to arriving in Chicago, Baker headed to the sunny Dominican Republic on a quick scouting trip to watch some of the team’s prospects in the winter league there.

That was followed by in-depth player development meetings with some of the brightest minds in the game, and then he went on to the convention, with the autograph and photo requests and offers of free beer.

Not a bad gig for Baker—or anyone, for that matter. The process of getting that gig began back in December 2014, when the Cubs let him go but gave him a glimpse into where his future may have been headed.

“When they non-tendered me in 2014, they told me on the phone, ‘Hey listen, when you feel like you’re done playing, we would like you to call us because there’s a home for you here. We’ll figure out where you fit best in our organization, but we want you around,'” Baker said.

The veteran catcher wound up landing in Seattle on a minor league deal that January, but he didn‘t break camp with the big league club and instead began the year in Triple-A Tacoma.

By the end of May, Seattle had released him, and this time, the move would officially mark the end to a playing career that began back in 2002 when the Oakland Athletics selected him in the fourth round as part of the infamous Moneyball draft.

“There’s a list of hitters I want to talk about,” assistant general manager Paul DePodesta said to a group of grizzled Oakland scouts prior to the 2002 draft, as depicted in the pages of the Michael Lewis bestseller. “All of these guys share certain qualities. They are the eight guys we definitely want. And we want all eight of these guys.”

Baker was one of those eight guys, and that shared quality was on-base ability. He had hit .383 with an impressive .516 on-base percentage during his junior season at the University of California.

However, it was as a member of the Florida Marlins that he made his big league debut on July 9, 2008, having been traded by Oakland prior to the 2007 season for prospect Jason Stokes.

He spent four seasons with the Marlins, two with the Padres and one with the Cubs before capping off his career with that brief pit stop in the Seattle organization.

It was only after his release from the Mariners that Baker finally began to think about what his next career move would be.

“When I was playing, I didn’t think about anything else,” he said. “I don’t believe in living any way other than moment to moment if you’re trying to be competitive in a sport. It was nice that I had five or six months at home with my family to talk to as many people as possible and go through what my future is going to look like.”

So what kind of job opportunities await a recently retired baseball player who didn‘t bank tens of millions of dollars over the course of his career and can’t simply retire altogether?

“I got offers to work for some tech-sales companies. I had offers in the medical supplies industry—a lot of athletes I think tend to go into that,” Baker said. “But I’m somebody that can’t sit on my hands; I have to be doing something.

“Everybody wants to be more financially successful, but that wasn’t at the top of the reasons why I was looking for another job. It was to find the best fit for me, and everybody I talked to outside of baseball and inside of baseball both said the longer you stay away, the harder it is to get back in.”

And that led him back to that standing offer from the Cubs. The organization hired him in December.

Officially, Baker holds the title of baseball operations assistant, but he’ll be exposed to a number of different aspects within the front office in his first year on the job.

“I get to do everything, and it’s exciting,” Baker said.

“I’ll be doing amateur scouting in the Bay Area and going on an international trip to Japan, Korea and Taiwan,” he said. “I’ll also be doing some targeted roving with some of the catching and working pretty closely with our mental skills department about coming up with strategies to communicate better with players.”

Baker provides a unique perspective for the front office as someone who has only recently stepped away from the game, and his ability to connect with the millennial generation should serve him well.

“I’ve always gotten along well with people much younger than me, and I have an ability to communicate that I think is similar to—and I don’t want to compare myself to this person—but I think that’s one of the greatest strengths of Joe Maddon is that he can relate to everybody on his team and guys still think that he’s cool,” Baker said.

“It’s important to have people like that that can communicate to both groups. To communicate to the field staff, the front office staff and have open lines of communication with your players.”

One of Baker’s 15,000 Twitter followers asked him how it felt to be back with the Cubs organization.

His response was simple:

For a professional athlete, no longer playing the game you love is never easy.

For John Baker, it simply means the start of an exciting new chapter in his career and a chance to rejoin an organization that feels like home.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Follow @JoelReuterBR

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Great starting pitching wins championships, and more than a few times over the years, a team has rode a pair of aces to a World Series title.

Generally a starting rotation is judged by the collective abilities of all five guys, and oftentimes the sixth and seventh guy up, as depth is paramount over the course of a 162-game season.

But what if we were to judge teams based only on the two starters fronting their respective staffs?

Ahead we’ve done just that, ranking all 30 MLB teams by the two pitchers who are projected to begin the season in the top two spots in the rotation.

Note: The fact that we’re basing this off projected Opening Day rosters is important to note for at least one team, as players expected to start the year on the disabled list were not considered here.

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Spring is approaching, people. We know this because with pitchers and catchers due to start reporting on February 18, spring training is now just a couple weeks away.

That means there’s precious little time for teams to do any last-minute shopping before spring training begins. So, we’re here to help out with a few suggestions.

Five suggestions, to be exact. There are four big-name free agents who are still looking for work. We’re going to find homes for them, as well as one big-name trade candidate.

We’ll hit the free agents first, starting with…

Arizona Diamondbacks Sign Howie Kendrick

The Diamondbacks have made two of the biggest splashes of the offseason, signing Zack Greinke to a $200-plus million contract and sending almost their entire farm to the Atlanta Braves for Shelby Miller. And now, they look like a team that might do some damage.

However, “might” isn’t the same as “will.”

The 2016 D-Backs do figure to be more well-rounded than the 2015 club that won 79 games, but the projections at FanGraphs are pretty much reflective of the popular opinion of the NL West: that Arizona isn’t quite up to par with the Los Angeles Dodgers or San Francisco Giants.

If the D-Backs are going to compete in 2016, they need more. Which brings us to Howie Kendrick.

The 32-year-old second baseman is still looking for work despite the fact that he’s as consistent as they come at the dish, hitting between .285 and .297 each year between 2011 and 2015. As Buster Olney of ESPN.com noted, Kendrick’s ties to draft-pick compensation aren’t helping.

Likewise, that seems to be a deal-breaker for the Diamondbacks.

“I just don’t know how far we’re going to get down the road with that,” Arizona general manager Dave Stewart recently told Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, who noted that Stewart seems especially hesitant to give up a second draft pick after already losing one to sign Greinke.

This is understandable, but here’s a counterpoint: Kendrick could really help the Diamondbacks.

According to FanGraphs, Arizona second basemen finished dead last in the National League in WAR in 2015. And as the projections see it, improvement isn’t in the cards in 2016. Hence, this observation from MLB Stat of the Day:

Mind you, even an upgrade like that wouldn’t make the D-Backs better on paper than the Dodgers or Giants. But it would definitely help close the gap, which is the best Arizona can hope for at this point.

It’s also hard to believe the D-Backs can’t afford it. Greinke’s signing means there’s no first-round draft pick at stake here, and the team should have enough money. Their projected payroll comes in a shade under $100 million, which sounds low for a team with a newly signed $1.5 billion TV deal.

Baltimore Orioles Sign Yovani Gallardo

Relative to how things could have gone, the Orioles have had a pretty good offseason. They could have lost Matt Wieters, Darren O’Day, Wei-Yin Chen and Chris Davis, but instead have only lost Chen.

In so doing, they’ve handed out over $200 million in guaranteed dollars. If a team is going to do that, it’s obviously committed to winning.

But like with the Diamondbacks in the NL West, the Orioles still look out of their depth in the AL East. As of now, they’re projected as the worst team in the division.

The big problem? Starting pitching. The solution? Yovani Gallardo.

The Orioles are projected to have the worst starting pitching in the American League in 2016. Which is believable. Staff ace Chris Tillman is coming off a rough 2015 season, and he’s backed by a motley crew of Miguel Gonzalez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Kevin Gausman and Mike Wright. That’s a rotation that needs at least one more solid arm.

“Solid” is as good a word as any to describe Gallardo. He owns a 3.66 ERA for his career and a 3.46 ERA over the last two seasons, and he has made a habit of flirting with the 200-inning plateau.

What might scare other suitors off is the fact that Gallardo is not the strikeout pitcher he once was, as he now operates by mixing his pitches and only toying with the strike zone. But this makes him a good fit for the Orioles rotation, which has generally preferred to get by on craftiness rather than power.

According to a report from Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun, the Orioles did have interest in Gallardo earlier in the offseason. That was obviously when they had more financial flexibility, and they also have to worry about losing the No. 14 pick in next year’s draft.

However, the Orioles also need to worry about competing. Gallardo can put them in a much better position to do that, and the likely reality is that he at least wouldn’t cost them too much money at this point. Gallardo is looking like a good candidate for a Scott Kazmir-like contract involving a short commitment, modest dollars and perhaps an early opt-out.

Los Angeles Angels Sign Dexter Fowler

The Angels made a splash when they traded for Andrelton Simmons earlier in the winter, but have been pretty quiet since then. That may mean they’re happy with their team heading into 2016.

Well, it’s not a bad team. It still has Mike Trout on it, after all, which is always a good thing.

But the Angels’ problem is that they don’t stand out in what’s shaping up to be a deep AL West. The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers look like the two best teams in the division, and the Angels may not be better than the Seattle Mariners. 

One thing that could help change that is a new leadoff hitter. You know, like Dexter Fowler.

Fowler owns a .363 career OBP and is typically good for double-digit homers and steals. And if he moves to left field, his defense probably wouldn’t be the problem that it’s been in center field.

All of this should appeal to the Angels. They not only need to upgrade a leadoff spot that produced just a .280 OBP and a .630 OPS in 2015, but also a left field situation that they’re currently trusting to spare parts like Daniel Nava and Craig Gentry.

Of course, Fowler won’t come cheap. Beyond costing the Angels a draft pick, it would also cost them a good chunk of change. With the club’s farm system in shambles and its payroll already set to brush up against the luxury tax threshold in 2016, these are legit concerns.

The Angels’ farm system is in so many shambles, however, that they’re unlikely to solve anything with the No. 17 pick in the draft anyway. As for the club’s luxury tax situation, Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com offered some solid reasoning here:

What the Angels don’t need — or, rather, don’t want — is to go beyond the $189 million luxury tax threshold. They’re already pushing right up against it. But at least Fowler’s projected contract at this point wouldn’t make for a major penalty — especially not for a first-time offender getting a 17.5-percent tax. And there’s a possibility the threshold will rise with the next Collective Bargaining Agreement.

This is basically Dennis Nedry saying, “Don’t get cheap on me, Dodgson.” Angels owner Arte Moreno would be wise to listen.

Chicago White Sox Sign Ian Desmond

The White Sox haven’t gone all-out bonkers like they did last winter, but their trade for Todd Frazier was a pretty clear signal that they’re still very much interested in competing.

In keeping with our theme, though, the South Siders just don’t seem to quite have enough for the task. They’re projected to be right around .500 in 2016, which may not be enough to cut it in a deep AL Central or in what’s likely to be a crowded American League Wild Card race.

One thing that could help the White Sox improve their fortunes is adding some offense at shortstop, which is where Ian Desmond comes in.

Last year, White Sox shortstops produced just a .631 OPS and 10 home runs. Even by the position’s relatively low standards, their shortstop offense was pretty terrible.

Desmond, meanwhile, can still hit. It didn’t look like it in the first half of 2015, but he rebounded to post a .777 OPS and hit 12 dingers in the second half. That was much more in line with his usual performance, which included a .788 OPS and an average of 23 dingers a year between 2012 and 2014.

Because Desmond is tied to draft-pick compensation, signing him is a costly maneuver for many of his suitors. But not for the White Sox. They have the No. 10 pick in the 2016 draft, which is a protected pick.

As such, it’s only going to cost them money to sign Desmond. And with John Danks and Adam LaRoche set to come off the books after 2016, now isn’t such a bad time for them to stretch their payroll a bit.

Texas Rangers Trade for Jonathan Lucroy

Unlike the other teams on this list, the Rangers seemingly have enough to make a serious run at contending in 2016. They’re the reigning AL West champs, and they’ll be getting Yu Darvish back this season.

If we’re going to nitpick, though, we can say that the Rangers haven’t done much to fortify their chances of defending their division title. And of all the areas they could make upgrades, perhaps the one most in need of an upgrade is catcher. It only projects to be a serviceable position in 2016.

Hence, Jonathan Lucroy.

Lucroy is coming off a rough 2015 season, as he was limited by injuries to only 103 games and watched his OPS fall 120 points from where it was in an MVP-caliber 2014 season. Factor in his apparent strike-framing decline, and he may already be past his prime.

Or, maybe it was just one bad year. As we discussed earlier this week, there’s a good chance of that.

Regardless of Lucroy’s future outlook, however, the big complication in trading for him is his price tag. The Milwaukee Brewers are clearly open to moving the veteran catcher, but Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has reported that the Rangers are one of several teams that think they’re asking for too much in a trade.

There is a trade to be made between these two clubs, however. Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs broke down several possibilities, ranging from a deal centered around Jurickson Profar to one centered around top prospects Dillon Tate or Lewis Brinson.

Getting a deal done may be as simple as the Rangers buying into the notion that Lucroy can be a star-caliber catcher again. If they do, the missing link in their 2016 plans is within their grasp.

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

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There’s a new star duo in town in Arizona. Determined to upgrade their starting pitching, the Diamondbacks aggressively added ace right-handers Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller to their rotation earlier this winter.

But, meh. While those two should help the Diamondbacks get to where they want to be in 2016 and beyond, the heart and soul of the team remains the other, more underappreciated star duo.

Before Greinke and Miller, there was center fielder A.J. Pollock and first baseman Paul Goldschmidt. And, granted, the two of them are hardly invisible on the national landscape. Both were All-Stars in 2015, and Goldschmidt has been the runner-up for the National League MVP in two of the last three seasons.

However, you’re not going to punch their names into Google and see anybody glorifying them the way past star duos have been glorified. You know, like Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire or Simon and Garfunkel.

Which is a danged shame, really, as the Pollock-Goldschmidt duo is arguably the best in the sport.

If you think back to 2015, maybe it’s Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista or Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant who come to mind first as the league’s most dynamic position player duo. But with a combined 16.2 wins above replacement, Baseball-Reference.com WAR actually puts that honor squarely on Pollock and Goldschmidt.

And lest anyone think that they’re strictly a 2015 success story, over the last two years, they actually reign supreme among the star duos that are still standing:

This isn’t all Goldschmidt, either. As awesome as “America’s First Baseman” is, he actually hasn’t been that much more productive than Pollock. Goldschmidt has produced 13.3 WAR over the last two years. Despite being limited to 75 games by injury in 2014, Pollock has produced 11.3.

Skeptical of WAR? That’s OK. The popular opinion may be that it’s a flawless measure of value, but there are flaws. The Citizen Kane of baseball statistics it is not.

But in a case like this one, WAR does have the right idea.

For position players, WAR is all about encapsulating all-around value. With a few quirks, checks and balances, and bells and whistles aside, its focus is on hitting, baserunning and fielding.

And those, of course, are otherwise known as three areas where Pollock and Goldschmidt excel.

It’s no secret that Goldschmidt‘s bat is legit. He’s hit .309 with a .968 OPS over the last three seasons, putting him behind only Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera in adjusted OPS. And in hitting .321 with a 1.005 OPS and 33 home runs in 2015, he made a strong case for himself as baseball’s best hitter.

Pollock is a darn good hitter in his own right. He’s coming off a .315 average, an .865 OPS and 20 dingers in 2015, and has hit .311 with an .861 OPS over the last two seasons combined. Among his fellow center fielders, adjusted OPS puts him behind only Trout and Andrew McCutchen.

Pollock also showed in 2015 that he can be one of the most productive baserunners in the sport. He stole 39 bases and finished in the top 10 in MLB in overall baserunning value, according to FanGraphs. For his part, Goldschmidt has averaged roughly 15 stolen bases per season over the last four years, allowing him to rate as the game’s top baserunning first baseman by a significant margin.

And then there’s the defense. Goodness, is there defense.

Pollock just led all National League center fielders in defensive runs saved, and Goldschmidt owned his fellow first basemen in that same department. And though defensive metrics have indeed been known to be inconsistent, they seem to have firm opinions on the quality of Pollock’s and Goldschmidt‘s defense. There’s also the fact that each just won a Gold Glove, proof that they pass the eye test as well.

That’s especially true of Pollock, who is capable of such feats as this:

We mentioned a few awesome hitting duos before, but pairs of players that are living, breathing highlight reels in all three phases of the game are decidedly rarer. To find two teammates as good as Pollock and Goldschmidt, you might have to go all the way back to Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez in the 1990s.

This naturally raises the question of why there isn’t more buzz surrounding the Pollock-Goldschmidt duo, and there are a few readily apparent answers.

One is the fact that they play in one of Major League Baseball’s more obscure markets. A second is the fact that the Diamondbacks have seemed more interested in upholding baseball’s unwritten rules than in playing good baseball in recent years. As a result of that, only Goldschmidt has gotten postseason exposure. And even when he did, it was only four games.

But another explanation for why Pollock and Goldschmidt aren’t bigger superstars is that they were never supposed to be superstars.

Baseball is in an age when the best prospects are not only hyped more than they used to be, but they are more likely to find success than perhaps ever before. It’s no wonder that many of the league’s brightest stars were famous prospects who simply became even more famous once they made good on all the hype in the majors. Think Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Andrew McCutchen, Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, and so on and so on down the line.

In an environment like this, the road to superstardom is naturally going to be a little longer for players that arrive in the big leagues amidst relatively little fanfare. And in both Pollock’s and Goldschmidt‘s prospect days, fanfare was pretty hard to come by.

Pollock was Arizona’s No. 17 pick out of Notre Dame in the 2009 draft, but Baseball America noted that there was a “debate as to whether he’s a true first-round talent.” Goldschmidt, meanwhile, was taken out of Texas State way down in the eighth round. 

Their stock didn‘t rise much in the years following the draft. Neither Pollock nor Goldschmidt ever appeared in an annual top 100 list at Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus or MLB.com. In fact, eventually they both got to a point where Baseball America didn‘t even consider them among the top prospects in Arizona’s system.

After the 2010 season, Baseball America rated Goldschmidt as Arizona’s No. 11 prospect, with a note that he might “at least have a solid career as a platoon player.” After the 2012 season, Baseball America rated Pollock as Arizona’s No. 10 prospect, with a note that some scouts were seeing him as “a solid regular in center field and others thinking he profiles best as a fourth outfielder.”

Knowing what we know now, a hat tip in the direction of whichever Diamondbacks executives and coaches believed in Pollock and Goldschmidt is appropriate. But a hat tip is also owed to the two players themselves, as they have defied expectations precisely because they had the will to do so.

As former Arizona scouting director Tom Allison told Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic about Pollock: “Guys don’t play above their tools — they maximize their tools. For someone like A.J. Pollock, his drive and his intangibles helped him maximize his tools more than other guys might.”

And as Alan Zinter, Goldschmidt‘s rookie ball coach, told Tyler Kepner of the New York Times: 

A lot of kids have so much pride that they want to show the coaches and the front office that they know what they’re doing, and they don’t need the help. They don’t absorb the information because they want us to think they know it already. Goldy didn’t have an ego. He didn’t have that illusion of knowledge. He’s O.K. with wanting to learn.

Being willing to put in the work to get better has gotten Pollock and Goldschmidt much further than most of them expected to go. And after all they’ve done in the last couple of years, here’s presuming the many doubters they once had are now true believers.

Now all they have to do is get Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Baseball Fan to come around.

To that end, it may be as simple as Pollock and Goldschmidt continuing to be themselves in 2016. If they can do that while Greinke and Miller elevate the Diamondbacks’ pitching staff, there might be some winning baseball going on in Arizona for a change. 

That would put more eyes on Pollock and Goldschmidt, and those eyes would see what they’ve been missing.

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

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Dexter Fowler, Ian Desmond, Yovani Gallardo and Howie Kendrick have a lot in common.

They’re all quality big leaguers, and they’re all unemployed. That second similarity is a product of that nasty draft-pick compensation they’re lugging around after declining qualifying offers from their old employers.

With MLB spring training just a couple of weeks away, the murky futures of that forgotten foursome stand out as the biggest question mark of the offseason.

As we tackle the latest round of questions and answers, there’s also time to explore the most recent speculation surrounding one of the game’s most polarizing players.

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The New York Mets played in the World Series last year, and third baseman David Wright believes that success is helping the team lure big-name players such as outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, per Adam Schein of CBS Sports (via Mike Axisa of CBSSports.com):

Until this Yoenis signing, we didn’t have that big splash, sexy free agent signing. We made good baseball moves this offseason, I believe. And then you come in at the end and get an impact bat like Cespedes definitely makes our team better going into this year. We are, I feel, a much better team than what we were going into 2015.

Obviously you want the good players to come play for you instead of going to your division rival. We’ve proven that players want to come play for us. You have to prove that you can be a winning a team, a winning organization, an organization that is willing to be aggressive and pull triggers on trades in the middle of the year, or make those free agent signings. And once you prove that you can stabilize that, and hopefully become a perennial winner, big time impact players want to come play for you. That was the case here.

Prior to last season, the Mets missed the playoffs eight consecutive years and had not played in the World Series since losing 4-1 to the New York Yankees during the 2000 season. As Wright said, they had trouble attracting talent but a World Series appearance can change that. 

The Cespedes signing—three years and $75 million—is a step in the right direction, but they didn’t lure him from another team. He was traded to the Big Apple from the Detroit Tigers last summer and was one of the more prolific hitters in MLB the second half of the season. He slashed .287/.337/.604 with 17 home runs and 44 RBI in just 57 games.

As this video from the Mets shows, he also has a pretty good arm:

However, had he signed elsewhere, Cespedes would have been the second player who contributed to the Mets’ success to leave after National League Championship Series MVP Daniel Murphy signed with the Washington Nationals. Instead, to Wright’s delight, he remains in New York, and it could help show that the Yankees are not the only team in the New York that can sign high-priced free agents.

The Mets should be contenders again in the NL East with a solid lineup and one of the best young pitching corps in the Majors.

Starters Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Steven Matz return to anchor a staff that allowed the fifth-fewest runs per game last year at 3.78 and had the second-highest quality-start percentage at 62.

Stats per baseball-reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Michael Brantley‘s terrific 2015 season ended on Sept. 28 after he suffered a small tear to the labrum on his non-throwing shoulder. He eventually had surgery to repair the injury. It remains unclear if he’ll be ready for the start of the 2016 season. 

Continue for updates. 

Bastian: Brantley Hoping for Opening Day Return

Thursday, Jan. 28

According to Jordan Bastian of MLB.com, Brantley is “progressing well, and said his goal is to be back by Opening Day. But, knows that might not be realistic.”

Brantley, who was originally acquired by Cleveland in the CC Sabathia trade with Milwaukee in 2008, has turned into a quiet superstar. 

In 2014, he was named to his first All-Star team and finished third in AL MVP voting after posting a .327/.385/.506 slash line with 45 doubles, 20 home runs, 23 stolen bases and 200 hits. He followed that up with a strong 2015 season that included a slash of .310/.379/.480 with 15 homes runs and 84 RBI in just 137 games.

Injuries have never been a major problem for Brantley, who had played in at least 149 games every season since 2012. 

The Indians were disappointing in 2015, finishing 13.5 games behind the Kansas City Royals in the American League Central, though Brantley did everything he could to keep them afloat. Jason Kipnis and Francisco Lindor have been the only other consistent sources of production in Cleveland’s lineup, so the loss of Brantley left a huge void it could not replace. 

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Cincinnati Reds center fielder Billy Hamilton is recovering from a torn labrum he suffered back in September.

Continue for updates.  

Hamilton On Track for Spring Training

Thursday, Jan. 28

Hamilton updated Mark Sheldon of MLB.com on the progress of his right shoulder, which he had surgically repaired during the offseason.

“The rehab is coming along well,” Hamilton said Thursday. “I’m not 100 percent yet, but close to it. We had a schedule to be ready right around spring training. As of right now, we’re on track to make that happen.”

He told Sheldon that he is fully “throwing, hitting [and] lifting weights,” claiming that he’s “not limited or anything” and that his “shoulder feels good.”

“I’m looking forward to getting out to Arizona and doing more stuff. I haven’t been able to do much stuff out on the field because of the weather,” Hamilton said. “It’s a process you don’t want to rush. I could go out there and long toss, but there’s no point in doing it right now. They want to make sure everything is healed.”

The Reds’ leadoff man experienced a down year during his second full season in the major leagues. One of the speediest players in the game, Hamilton batted just .226 in 114 games with a .274 on-base percentage. 

Despite his difficulties getting on base, Hamilton still swiped a career-best 57 bases, a number that would have been much higher had he not run into shoulder issues.

He realizes that too, as he told Sheldon. 

“[The results] were nowhere near where I wanted them to be,” Hamilton said. “Baseball is a game where if you set a goal and don’t get it, you have to do something in the offseason to make that goal happen the next year. I feel like this is a new year and I’ll do better.”

For a Reds team that ranked 26th in the majors last season with just 3.95 runs per game, it’ll need a player like Hamilton to find his way on base and help manufacture runs for the team.

Too often in 2015, a big bat like Joey Votto was coming up to the plate with the bases empty. It would be a huge help to the team if Hamilton made some noise ahead of him and was able to wreak some havoc on the basepath.  

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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