Here is the 2020 Hall of Fame ballot

Paul Konerko

Below is a list of every player on the 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Names are listed alphabetically:

Bobby Abreu, Josh Beckett, Heath Bell, Barry Bonds, Eric Chávez, Roger Clemens, Adam Dunn, Chone Figgins, Rafael Furcal, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton, Raúl Ibañez, Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Paul Konerko, Cliff Lee, Carlos Peña, Brad Penny, Andy Pettitte, J.J. Putz, Manny Ramírez, Brian Roberts, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Alfonso Soriano, Sammy Sosa, José Valverde, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Larry Walker.

Of note for White Sox fans, Konerko is on the ballot for the first time. I do not expect Konerko to make the Hall this year or any other year, but hey, I didn't expect Harold Baines to get in either, but he did.

Jeter is the only sure bet to get in among the other first-timers. Other notables making their first appearance on the ballot include Soriano, Giambi, Dunn, Lee and Abreu.

Me personally, I hope Giambi doesn't get in. He's a steroids guy, and I hold a grudge against him for cheating to win the 2000 American League MVP award. (Frank Thomas was more deserving.)

Walker is on the ballot for the final time, and we'll see if he can get the votes necessary for induction on his last kick at the can, much like Edgar Martinez did last year.

Players must appear on 75% of the ballots in order to be inducted. Last year, there were 425 ballots cast, so 319 votes were necessary to cross the 75% threshold.

Hall voters are required to submit their votes by the end of the calendar year, and this year's class will be announced Jan 21 on MLB Network. The 2020 induction will be July 26.

Can Chase Headley jump-start the Yankees in the AL East race?

The New York Yankees have a mediocre 51-48 record and a minus-30 run differential, and 80 percent of their projected starting rotation is on the disabled list.

Nevertheless, the Yankees still believe they have a shot to win this year, and they signaled as much on Tuesday when they acquired third baseman Chase Headley from the San Diego Padres in exchange for infielder Yangervis Solarte and minor-league pitcher Rafael De Paula.

You can't blame the Yankees for believing they have a chance. The AL East is no longer the strongest division in baseball. Despite its uneven play, New York sits just four games back of first-place Baltimore entering Wednesday's action.

But can Headley make an impact? The numbers suggest he will not. He has experienced a steady decline since his career year in 2012.

2012: .286/.376/.498, 31 HRs, 115 RBIs
2013: .250/.347/.400, 13 HRs, 50 RBIs
2014: .230/..296/.353, 7 HRs, 33 RBIs

There's nothing about Headley that suggests he will ever repeat his numbers from two years ago. That was a career outlier. His career slash is .266/.346/.409. He's perhaps a better hitter than he's shown this year, but it's folly to think he'll ever slug close to .500 again.

Headley has been floundering on some awful San Diego teams. He has no help in that lineup whatsoever, so there is some chance he will be resurgent in New York where he will no longer be counted upon to carry an offense. Some have noted Headley's numbers might be hurt by the pitcher-friendly confines at Petco Park. Yankee Stadium, of course, is a hitter-friendly ballpark.

However, an analysis of Headley's splits this year shows no difference in his slugging percentage home and away:

Home: .250/.301/.354, 2 HRs, 19 RBIs
Road: .209/.290/.353, 5 HRs, 14 RBIs

Headley has been a slightly better offensive player at home, in fact. I'm skeptical he'll be the game-changer the Yankees are looking for.

What New York really needs to do is add a front-line starting pitcher. The Yankees have had horrible luck this year with Masahiro Tanaka, CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova and Michael Pineda all on the disabled list. The latter three are on the 60-day DL. Brandon McCarthy has made two good starts since coming over from the Arizona Diamondbacks, but the Yankees are at least one arm, if not two, short in the starting rotation.

There are rumors the Yankees are interested in White Sox left-hander John Danks. I would think, though, that New York needs a top-of-the-rotation starter, like Cliff Lee or Cole Hamels. Danks is nothing more than a mid-rotation guy pitching with a surgically repaired shoulder at this point.

Even with Headley, I don't think New York is going to win the AL East as presently constructed. I think the Yankees need that guy to lead their pitching stuff, or else they'll be lucky to stay in the hunt for the wild card in a mediocre American League.

Edwin Jackson pretty much is what he's always been

Cubs pitcher Edwin Jackson has quietly strung together a few solid starts to kick off May, and after a not-so-hot April has brought his overall numbers (3.98 ERA, 3-3 record) back to general standards of respectability. That's pretty much what the Cubs paid for when they gave him a four-year, $52 million contract two winters ago.

An optimist would look at his 1.80 ERA so far this month, the improved 8.1 K/9IP rate (vs. 6.9/K9 last year), and the fact that Jackson has only given up two home runs this year (for a 0.3/9IP rate) and think the veteran right-hander is finally turning it on. After all, his fielding-independent ERA -- what we'd expect his ERA would be given average defense and luck -- is almost a full run below his actual ERA (3.03).

We've already seen the pessimist's version of this story with Jackson before. Like back in 2009 in Detroit, when he tore through the first half of the season with a 2.52 ERA, before his K rate dropped, his hit rate soared and he was pummeled for an ERA of 5.07 the second half of the season.

Cubs fans watched it unfold last year when Jackson finished June with a 5.75 ERA, forcing laments of early buyer's remorse. Then he dominated July with a 1.83 ERA ... before being battered with a 5.74 ERA the rest of the year.

To say Jackson is streaky is an understatement, but he's also been remarkably consistent in what we can expect from his overall body of work.

Before long we can expect Jackson to give up a few more hits, including more that leave the ballpark. His strikeouts will dip a little bit, and depending on his luck, will probably finish with around 190 innings of work with an ERA between 3.75 and 4.50. Maybe a little lower if he adds another long hot streak. Maybe a little higher if he goes cold like he did the last two months of last year, or gets hung out to dry in a start or two.

And again, this is exactly what the Cubs paid for. If Jackson were likely to keep the high K rate, stop walking guys and get more groundball outs -- like, say, Cliff Lee -- he probably would have gotten $100 million as a free agent instead of what the Cubs paid.

Jackson's ability is always going to frustrate people who expect more, maybe tantalized by the dominant stretches.

Enjoy this stretch for what it is, while it lasts.

Big contract for any pitcher is risky business

The contract Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka is going to receive is already giving some people upset stomachs. The size of it might end up being more eye-popping than the $50-60 million contracts teams gave to Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Keep in mind that was before the posting fee was capped at $20 million. The Red Sox and Rangers each coughed up posting fees in excess of $50 million, making the total investment for each pitcher more than $100 million.

It was a big deal when Kevin Brown
became the first $100 million pitcher
in baseball when he signed with the Dodgers.

That big of an investment rarely works out well if you're expecting the player to pitch well over the life of the whole contract. Here are the biggest contracts ever given to pitchers:

Felix Hernandez, Mariners, $175,000,000 (2013-19)
CC Sabathia, Yankees, $161,000,000 (2009-15)
Zack Greinke, Dodgers, $147,000,000 (2013-18)
Cole Hamels, Phillies, $144,000,000 (2013-18)
Johan Santana, Mets, $137,500,000 (2008-13)
Matt Cain, Giants, $127,500,000 (2012-17)
Barry Zito, Giants, $126,000,000 (2007-13)
CC Sabathia, Yankees, $122,000,000 (2012-16)
Mike Hampton, Rockies, $121,000,000 (2001-08)
Cliff Lee, Phillies, $120,000,000 (2011-15)
Yu Darvish, Rangers, $111.700,000 (2012-2017)*
Kevin Brown, Dodgers, $105,000,000 (1999-2005)
Daisuke Matsuzaka, Red Sox, $102,111,111 (2007-2012)*
Adam Wainwright, Cardinals, $97,500,000 (2014-18)
Carlos Zambrano, Cubs, $91,500,000 (2008-12)
-Source: Cot's Baseball Contracts
*posting fee included with salary

Obviously most of these contracts are newer as teams have been flush with cash and the pay for elite pitchers has gone up. Though maybe it's interesting is that five of the top six contracts ever given out to pitchers weren't signed by free agents, but were extensions for guys with a year or two left before hitting the market.

Of the contracts that have been completed, all of them looked like a disaster at some point. Hampton's looked like one almost as soon as the ink dried in the thin Colorado air. Zito's was almost as bad save for the fact he still soaked up a lot of innings for the Giants over the course of his seven-year deal.

Over the course of Zambrano's extension, he suffered a decrease in either his performance or ability to take the mound each and every year of his new contract. Matsuzaka and Santana each had a few good years at the front ends of their deals before ineffectiveness and/or injuries did them in.

The best contract of all of them in my opinion was Brown's. Baseball's first $100 million arm was good for more than 1,000 innings with a 3.23 ERA over seven years. Brown, who I think has an underrated Hall of Fame case, missed some time with injuries, but still pitched a lot of mostly good innings for his money, only completely losing it the final year when he was 40.

The jury is still out on the other contracts. Cain, Verlander, Hamels and Sabathia each just endured their worst season in years. Greinke was very good, but missed time after breaking a bone in a scuffle with Carlos Quentin. With Hernandez, Lee, Darvish and Wainwright, things are looking so-far-so-good, though only Lee's contract is even close to completion.

The results here seem pretty apparent. If you don't have to spend almost $100 million or more on a pitcher, then don't. The risk is still one that teams are willing to make, especially teams that are close to contention. Should they be?

Possibly. In a way, this is already how teams view the cost of dabbling in free agency. They're willing to get a good value on the front end of a contract in exchange for dead money at the end.

Looking at each of these contracts, none of them really stopped the team paying the checks from doing anything else. Zito didn't keep the Giants from winning two World Series titles. Lee and Hamels aren't the problem with the Phillies' payroll. Even Mike Hampton's contract was eventually carved up and served in digestible bites that teams other than the Rockies helped swallow.

Unless Tanaka pulls a Hampton-Zito, the team that wins the bidding for his services will be getting a good pitcher for at least a few years. So any team with the money might as well bid away.