Jay Bruce is a free agent for the first time in his 10-year career, and he hits the market among a throng of veterans entering their age-31 season.

Bruce is one year younger than Carlos Gonzalez, Lorenzo Cain and Carlos Gomez -- free-agent outfielders seeking a new contract this offseason. But of those four, none has shown more power the past two seasons than Bruce, who hit 69 homers -- fifth most of all outfielders -- during that span. It included a career-high 36 in 2017 while playing for the Mets and Indians.

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Like many in this era of home runs and power pitching, Bruce has put a heavy premium on analytics, an avenue that simply wasn't available when he broke into the Majors in 2008. In fact, at the time, Bruce admittedly evaded from any form of self-evaluation -- specialized or informal.

"It was more just go play and see what happens" Bruce said. "When I was playing poorly, I was just hoping it would come back."

A trade from the Reds to the Mets in 2016 was eye-opening for Bruce, who came into Spring Training in '17 seeking clarity for a slump so sobering the previous August (.552 OPS for the month) that the club gave him time off.

Even when Bruce was putting up his best numbers in Cincinnati, his swing was long and loud, characteristics that over a six-month season can be energetically taxing. Video examinations from his early career to now show significant stance adjustments. Bruce is now much more crouched and compact, which has created a more condensed strike zone and allows him to harness his lower-body strength more efficiently.

"I think that it's more consistent," Bruce said. "When you stay in your legs better and you utilize your legs, you kind of let your legs deliver the barrel to the zone. … I think the consistency comes from understanding what makes you successful as a player and trying to put yourself in a position to be able to do that as many times as possible."

The collective effort yielded mixed outcomes in 2017. Bruce connected for 44 barrels -- classified by Statcast™ as the most optimal hits -- which was tied for the eighth most in the Majors among left-handed hitters, more than Cody Bellinger, Bryce Harper and Mike Moustakas, and was a personal increase by eight from '16.

But Bruce's objective was to go to the opposite field less -- a completely contradictory approach from the one he had just a year prior, when he was purposely pushing the ball to left to combat shifts. Yet in 2017, he went there about the same, if not more.

However, Bruce's revised stance created more lift, which, coupled with his elite power, led to his career high in homers. Bruce's swing averaged an 18.2-degree launch angle -- up from 14.6 degrees in 2016 -- which may have correlated with a higher line-drive/fly-ball rate (58.4 percent, 11th best in the Majors).

Those results reflect Bruce's successful ambition of limiting grounders. He had the ninth-lowest rate (22.9 percent) of "topped" balls -- those that were hit directly into the ground -- among 182 hitters with at least 300 batted balls. That's a drastic decrease from his 30.3 percent in 2016, which ranked 57th among 186 batters with the same sample size.

Bruce has embraced fly-ball analytics that helped Justin Turner and Daniel Murphy, among others, reconstruct their swings and revive their careers. He may not contend for batting titles with those two, but Bruce has incorporated similar adjustments that have helped him get the ball into the air, out of the infield and over the shift. According to FanGraphs, Bruce faced a shift 347 times last year, and he hit .274, up from the .250 he batted in '16 against 328 shifts and the .265 he hit against 232 shifts in '15.

This could be a selling point in a free-agent market saturated with similar hitters. Left-handed pull sluggers with limited speed make up a demographic that has lost its premium in recent years, due to a combination of more players focusing on hitting homers and a youth movement of more cost-effective hitters with similar skills.

"As far as my profile as a player, I'd say that I've kind of epitomized that middle-of-the-order bat -- does damage and drives in runs, and really do my best to maximize that aspect of my game as much as I can," said Bruce, who is reportedly seeking a five-year deal.

"The last couple years, I've been more interested in the data," Bruce added. "I think that you have to be sure and realize what it can offer you. I think that some people try and change themselves as a player after looking at it, but really, if you use it correctly -- at least some of it -- it'll allow you to kind of pull out and dissect what makes you who you are as a player, and hopefully you can work on doing that better."