There are so many talented free agents available this offseason because there always are -- Cy Young Award winners, postseason MVPs and former World Series champs. Even the best teams have spots to fill and decisions to make, and money to spend. But of all the jobs available right now, the most attractive is shortstop for the New York Yankees, where Derek Jeter played.

That is the glamour position for the Yankees now. Once it was center field, because that was where Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle played. DiMaggio, whose Yankees won nine World Series, was the face of the team in his time, and then Mantle was in the 1950s and '60s while his Yankees were winning seven Fall Classics. Then almost 30 years after Mantle retired came Jeter, who became the face of the franchise and the most popular Yankees player of his time. His club won five times.

The Yankees are still looking for a star to play his old position, seven years after his retirement. Didi Gregorius gave them some very good years there. Last year they had Gleyber Torres, better suited as a second baseman, playing short, and then Gio Urshela moving over from third. So, the Yanks didn’t have anything close to a star at short, or in center field for that matter.

But now Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has free agent options at short, in an extraordinary free agent class of shortstops, and has made it clear that his plan is to sign one of them.

“Shortstop is an area of need,” Cashman said bluntly on the day when he announced that the Yankees were keeping Aaron Boone as their manager. “We need to address it.”

It is a good time to address that need and turn what was such a glaring weakness for Cashman’s Yankees last season back into a strength. (The Yanks might have played their best ball in 2021 with a Bronx kid named Andrew Velazquez playing short.) People want to know where Max Scherzer is going to end up, of course, and his old Tigers teammate Justin Verlander. But the biggest spotlight is on shortstops this time. And, boy, the Yankees sure do need a good one. Or even a great one.

Corey Seager is available. He was the World Series MVP when the Dodgers won the 2020 World Series. He will turn 28 on April 27. Carlos Correa will be 27 on Opening Day. His Astros team has played in three of the past five World Series, came within a Game 7 against the Rays in 2020 of making it four Fall Classics in five years.

Then there is former A’s shortstop Marcus Semien. He had a better year than either Seager or Correa for the Blue Jays, for whom he played second base last season because Bo Bichette was the Jays’ shortstop. Semien hit 45 homers and knocked in 102 and is an AL MVP finalist after the season of his life. He is 31 and is available, too. Trevor Story of the Rockies, a few years removed from his best seasons, is out there, as well.

It is believed that Seager, a left-handed hitter who would find a dream right-field wall for himself at Yankee Stadium, is the name at the top of the Yankees’ list, the way Gerrit Cole was when he became a free agent after the 2019 season, and before the Yankees gave him a $324 million contract. He is the kid who pulled off the extraordinary double of being both the NLCS MVP and the Series MVP when the Dodgers won it all in ’20.

In terms of age and postseason experience, he and Correa check the most boxes for any and all of their prospective and, presumably, deep-pocketed suitors. But both have also spent plenty of time on the injured list. Seager missed most of ’18 with a right UCL injury. He played just 95 games for the Dodgers this season, missing a ton of time because of a broken bone in his right hand after being hit by a pitch in May. Correa, who’s had back issues in the past, played just 75 games in ’19, 110 games the year before that, 109 games in ’17, the year the Astros did win their World Series against Seager’s Dodgers.

Correa played in 148 games in ’21. But it was Semien who was the horse for the Jays, playing all 162 on a team that looked like the most dangerous club in the AL coming down the stretch in September, before missing out on the postseason on the final day of the regular season. Semien also played 162 for the A’s in 2019, and 159 the year before that. Still showing his durability at shortstop then across a full season.

One of them is going to end up in New York, big-stage guys on what is still the biggest stage there is. Best job out there for my money, and some team’s. The Yankees aren’t looking for another Jeter. There’s not going to be one of those. The Yanks definitely have more holes to fill than the one at shortstop. But the No. 1 need is there. In the space at Yankee Stadium once occupied by No. 2.