2016 MLB Player Profile: Jedd Gyorko

Jedd Gyorko was traded in December to the Cardinals for Jon Jay. It was a bit of an odd move at the time as Jedd, a young player, was merely being added as a depth play. However, with the thumb injury suffered by Jhonny Peralta, one that sounds likely to knock him out of action for 2-3 months, suddenly makes Gyorko the likely starting options at shortstop as of this writing. How does the disappointing youngster profile for the 2016 season?

Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.

THE NUMBERS

Gyorko was a second round draft selection in 2010.

Here are his prospect rankings for 2012 and 2013 amongst all minor leaguers.

Now on to the overall stats for Gyorko, both for his time in the minors and the majors.
 

*Gyorko was 6th in the NL Rookie of the Year vote in 2013.

BATTING AVERAGE / APPROACH

Here is what you need to know with Jedd over his 1,307 at-bats and 1,426 plate appearances.

Jedd owns a .236 batting average. That’s awful. Through three years he’s never hit .250. The last three seasons the league average is .250 by the way. Can Jedd improve upon what we’ve seen from him to this point? That’s the real question.

Gyorko owns a .277 BABIP mark. Even if we wipe out his horrible 2014 effort (he hit .210 with a .253 BABIP), we’re still talking about a fella who has marks of .287 and .290 which is slightly below the league average of .300.

Gyorko has a 21.8 percent line drive rate for his career. That is better than the league average of 20 percent. The mark does give some hope that there might be something to see with him. OK, that’s trying to turn a frown upside down. There’s really not much to think the batting average will improve as you will continue to see.

Gyorko has walked 96 times in… 364 games. In three seasons he’s failed to walk more than 36 times in a season. I know he’s yet to play 130 games in a campaign, but this is just terrible work. He doesn’t walk and that isn’t going to boost his batting average.

Gyorko has a 23.1 percent K-rate. I see worse numbers than that on a daily basis, but it’s also not a mark that leads anyone to believe his batting average is going to improve. In each of his three seasons he’s struck out 100 times. Gyorko also owns a swinging strike rate of Also not a fan of that 11.9 percent swinging strike rate. Moreover, per 500 at-bats he’s averaged 126 punchouts. Not horrible, but also far from ideal.

Gyorko owns a 0.29 BB/K rate for his career, a mark that is merely 75 percent of the league average.

None of this paints a bright picture. The nail in the coffin though might be the last piece of data…

Gyorko has hit a mere .228 against righties in his career over more than 976 at-bats. His BB/K rate is also just 0.24 against righties, even worse than his career rate.

Because of the lack of average, and the lack of walks, Gyorko owns a .293 career on-base percentage. Yikes that is bad. Given that mark, and the fact that he’s likely to hit in the bottom third of the order, maybe he will hit 6th, he’s just not going to score a lot of runs. Not much of a rosie outlook there.

POWER STROKE

Gyorko has pop. That is true. As a rookie he socked 23 long balls continuing a trend of big time power for a middle infielder (2013 was his third straight campaign of at least 23 homers). You can also see above that per 162 game that Jedd is averaging 22 big flies at the big league level.

For his career Jedd has a 1.10 GB/FB ratio. That’s pretty much a league average number. His fly ball rate is 37 percent which is a couple of points above the league average. Nothing exciting, but it works for a guy who wants to be a 20 homer bat.

Gyorko owns a 13.4 percent HR/FB ratio. The league average is about 10 percent, as you likely know by now, so Jedd is slightly ahead in this category as well.

Jedd is in possession of a .158 career Isolated Power mark. With the league average being about .140 – it was .139 the last three seasons – well, you know. Kinda just there. However, the mark jumps up to .183 against left-handed pitching, a much more appealing number. The righty swinger also owns a 15.1 percent HR/F ratio against portsiders compared to his 12.8 percent mark against righties, so that possess a concern worth considering when it comes to setting your daily lineup.

SPEED QUOTIENT

He doesn’t have one. He stole double-digit bases once in the minors, but over 364 big league games he’s swiped 4-of-8 bases attempts. He’s not going to steal bases, just ain’t.

POSITIONAL FLEXIBILITY

Gyorko is a second sacker by trade at the big league level appearing at the spot 319 times in three seasons. That work includes 76 starts, and 93 total games at second base in 2015. Gyorko also appeared at shortstop last season 29 times (28 starts). As far as I can tell he didn’t appear at short in a single minor league game. Obviously Gyorko isn’t going to make anyone’s all-star team based on his glove, but as of this writing the Cardinals really don’t have an obvious option to turn to unless you think that Greg Garcia or Aledmys Diaz is a realistic alternative. "I definitely think Mr. Gyorko gives you more flexibility, especially from an offensive standpoint," Cardinals VP and GM John Mozeliak said. "And in terms of what we look like, there are always opportunities to get better. Right now we just have to take this information, absorb it, and that will determine what our next steps are over the next week or two."

Have you picked up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide yet? The Guide includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS.

OUTLOOK

Gyorko is, oddly enough, pretty much the same guy as Jhonny Peralta. That’s not really fair to Peralta, he’s got more than a decade of success under his belt, but other than the experience the only category in which Peralta really stands out over Gyorko is in the batting average category, though it’s not like his .268 career average is outstanding by any measure.

10-team Mixed: As a middle infielder with dual position eligibility you can look his way. Note though that he doesn’t hit righties well, doesn’t run, will hurt you in batting average, and it’s not like Peralta is expected to miss all season or anything. Draftable only as a reserve option, but even that isn’t recommended.

12-team Mixed: Some pop, some flexibility is what you get with Jedd. It’s not like the shortstop position is filled up with elite options by any means, but there at least players you could turn to that appear to be locked into full-time work all season long. Not much interest here either.

15-team Mixed: The lone mixed league scenario in which Gyorko is intriguing. None of the faults are going away though, so as long as you have in your mind that your adding an infield bat with pop, and one that might not be starting in four months, then you can turn to this fella as a nice reserve round add.

NL-Only: A week ago the interest was lukewarm. Now, the interest is significant. There are still plenty of holes in his game of course, but a spot in the daily lineup, with dual-position eligibility, likely has doubled the cost of what have been wise to spend on Gyorko a week ago.

To see where Gyorko ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).