The headlines the first few weeks of 2016 weren't kind to Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman:

"What's wrong with Freddie Freeman?"

"Freddie Freeman coming up empty with runners in scoring position"

"Freddie Freeman struggling; hitting coach sees tweaks to be made"

Freeman was hitting below .200 in late April and remained at a lackluster .242/.336/.414 through June 12. Offense was up across the league, but Freeman was putting up the worst numbers of his career and the Braves were an awful 18-44. Braves fans were even starting to turn on the player the team had decided to build the offense around -- the one player retained after 2014's teardown.

Can Freeman do it again? How many home runs will Freddie Freeman hit in 2017? Vote at the bottom of the page »

Freeman then reminded us that it's a long season. He homered and doubled on June 13. He went 4-for-7 with a home run two days later, homered and had three hits the day after that, then had another three-hit game the next day. Two days after that, he had a four-hit game. Over that seven-game spurt, he raised his batting line to .279/.365/.492.

He was just heating up.

In the second half, he had the second-highest wOBA in the majors, behind only Joey Votto, en route to a career-best 34 home runs. And his final numbers -- .302/.400/.569 -- were impressive enough that he placed sixth in the MVP voting even though the Braves finished 26.5 games out of first place.

So the question of the day: Is this a new level of production for Freeman?

After struggling through a 1-for-24 stretch in April, Freeman admitted he was having trouble catching up with fastballs.

"I haven't been loading," Freeman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It's just been kind of stepping into the ball instead of loading and getting my [front] foot down. We've kind of known it was there and trying to work on it."

Freeman's slow start also might have been a lingering effect of a wrist injury he suffered in 2015. While his power surge might simply be credited to better health and increased strength at age 26 (and perhaps some help from the allegedly juiced baseball of 2016 or whatever it was that helped everyone's power numbers), Freeman also got back to hitting the ball to the opposite field more often, as he did in 2013, and with great success:

Freeman to the opposite field Year Avg. wOBA AB/HR Opp Field Opp ISO 2013 .319 .390 24.0 28.3% .304 2014 .288 .374 33.7 22.2% .315 2015 .276 .370 23.1 26.6% .315 2016 .302 .413 17.3 29.6% .500

Freeman always has hit for decent isolated power when he goes to the opposite field, but that figure shot way up in 2016 with an isolated power of .500 on fly balls and line drives compared to .315 the previous two seasons. Twelve of his 34 home runs went to the opposite field, a total that tied for third in the majors behind Miguel Cabrera and Chris Davis.

What's interesting about Freeman's all-field approach in 2016 is that it also came with a career-high strikeout rate. You usually think of hitters with that approach as lower-strikeout guys, compared to sluggers who grip it and rip it and try to pull everything while racking up the whiffs. Freeman ranked 31st out of 146 qualified hitters in percentage of contact to the opposite field, but of those with a higher percentage, only Yasmany Tomas and Kyle Seager were also 30-homer guys.

So that makes Freeman kind of a unique entity. It seems he has learned to sacrifice some contact, but with harder contact when he does connect. As Tony Blengino described him on FanGraphs, "He's a hit-before-power guy with lots of power, squarely in the prime of his career."

Given his age and mature approach, I like Freeman's chances to have another big season -- maybe the BABIP drops a bit, but I think he hits 30-plus home runs again. We don't know how the Braves' new park will play, but Turner Field played as a tough home run park (fifth-lowest home run index in the majors from 2014-2016, according to the Bill James Handbook). SunTrust Park will be 15 feet shorter in the right-center power alley and 5 feet shorter in left-center, so Freeman could receive a few extra home runs there.

I was skeptical of Freeman turning into a big star before last season, but I'm buying this new level. I don't think he's going to get better -- his list of comparable players at Baseball-Reference.com are all guys who maxed out at age 26, with the exception of Jack Clark, who turned into a high-OBP guy in his 30s due to an extremely high walk rate. Freeman's improvement in 2016 suggests a hitter who understands his swing and has fully tapped into his natural power. The Steamer projection system at FanGraphs forecasts a .275/.378/.491 line, but I'm taking the over. That means if the Braves can turn into playoff contenders, Freeman could finish even higher than sixth in the MVP voting.