2017 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Jedd Gyorko

Jedd Gyorko

28 years old

Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6’4”, 210 lbs

Position: Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop

THE NUMBERS

Minor League Overall Rankings per season.

THE SKILLS

Let’s start out with the home run.

The obvious.

In 821 at-bats in 2014-15 Gyorko hit 26 homers.

Per 400 at-bats his first three seasons he averaged 15 homers.

In 2016, in 400 at-bats, he hit 30 homers.

That seem, on the surface, to be a repeatable number to you?

Deeper.

In three season, 2013-15, Gyorko never had a HR/FB ratio over 15.9 percent. His mark those three years was 13.4 percent.

In 2016 he posted a HR/FB ratio of 24.4 percent.

That seem, on the surface, to be a repeatable number to you?

Oh yeah, the 24.4 ratio from last season was also the 8^th best in baseball.

That’s simply not who Gyorko is.

Deeper.

Of the 30 homers he hit last season nine of them were “Just Enough” while only six were “No Doubt” (for more on that see All About the Home Run). For what it’s worth, Gyorko’s average distance last season was 402.1 feet, 62^nd amongst the 117 men that hit 18 homers. That’s not impressive, nor does it support the belief that he will hit 30 homers again.

Gyorko did increase his fly ball rate last season, a career high 40.3 percent, but it remains to be seen if he will be able to sustain that rate after being about four percentage points lower the previous two seasons. Gyorko also upped his pull rate by about four percent up to 45.2. That’s a good thing for his homer totals since it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t have much opposite field pop (from ESPN – his 2016 HR chart).

It really hasn’t mattered whether a lefty or righty has been on the bump for Gyorko – or does it? He’s been better against lefties overall but his career SLG against lefties is only .022 points higher than against righties at .434. The Isolated Power mark is a mere two points different versus lefties (.179) and righties (.181).

However, should be mentioned that last year was the first time that Gyorko really pounded righties. His first three seasons his OPS against righties were .715, .594 and .654. That’s really poor work. Last season though the number surged to .836. Speaking of Isolated Power, the mark was a stupendous .295 last season, fueled by his insane 29.5 HR/FB rate against righties last season that produced 23 homers in 261 at-bats. So, though the career numbers suggest the lefty/righty thing is pretty equal, be aware that the reason for that is completely based off his insane ’16 effort against righties. The question becomes, how much of those gains does he hold on to in 2017? The guy has a pathetic .283 career OBP against righties so it’s pretty much homers or bust for Gyorko against them.

Let’s talking batting average.

He stinks in batting average.

Gyorko has hit .238 for his career.

In four seasons he has never hit .250.

Against lefties he’s hit .255 while he’s hit .231 against righties.

He’s hit .234 at home and .241 on the road.

He’s consistently terrible in batting average.

There’s nothing in this skill set to suggest improvement is coming. Even last season, when he crushed 23 homers in 70 games in the second half of the season, he hit .243.

He stinks in batting average.

Stealing a base? Not happening. He has four steals in four seasons.

He stinks in the steals department.

What about runs scored? Per 162 games he’s averaged a mere 63 runs scored. Why is the number so low? It’s because he has no idea how to get on base. His career OBP is .296. The league average the last four seasons is .311. He’s been worse than average. When your mark is in the 200’s... you flat out stink. In four seasons his career best mark is .306. He doesn’t get on base. He isn’t fast. He isn’t going to score a lot of runs. Note that he’s hit 79 homers in his career accounting for a large portion of the 191 runs he’s scored. He’s not a big run scorer.

As for RBI, he’s passable. However, if you haven’t put it together yet, have you noticed that only once in four seasons that Gyorko has 425 at-bats? Even in his “breakout” last year he had just 400 at-bats. He’s not going to be a big-time RBI guy if he only plays 4-of-5 games (more on that situation below). It should also be pointed out that he isn’t very good with runners on base. Here are his career numbers.

Look at that again. With men in scoring position he has been flat out awful.

Folks, Gyorko just isn’t very good.

PLAYING TIME

The guy qualifies everywhere. Here are his games played totals from last season.

First Base: 11 games, eight starts
Second Base: 46 games, 39 starts
Third Base: 39 games, 28 starts
Shortstop: 26 games, 25 starts

That versatility is a big selling point.

However, where is he going to play this season? Currently, the Cards are planning on using Kolten Wong at second, Aledmys Diaz at short and they are going to platoon Gyorko and Jhonny Peralta at third base. Probably. The team likely wants Peralta to win the job at the hot corner, leaving Gyorko to be a super sub type. If Peralta, Wong and Diaz are healthy, Gyorko is going to have a very hard time finding as much playing time as he did last season. The local NBC affiliate in St. Louis reported concerns as well at the prospects of the Cardinals’ third base options.  

AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION DATA

As of this writing, here is Gyorko ADP data.

Fantasy Alarm Player Rankings

CONCLUSION

Gyorko will never again match his homer pace of last season. He doesn’t steal bases, doesn’t produce average, and doesn’t get on base. He also isn’t locked in to a full-time position in the field. Given all that it’s no surprise to note that folks are really pulling back on Gyorko even after his impressive second half last season.

10-Team Mixed: In a league this shallow, there’s just no need to look his way. Too many concerns.

12-Team Mixed: To me, he’s the last guy on your bench merely because of his positional options. Personally, I’m not drafting him though. Just not interested in this skill set. I would only be interested if he was on waivers and I had a need in season for a fill-in.

15-Team Mixed: No steals. No average. It’s all about power. Remember, though he hit 30 homers last season, 23 came in the second half when he was fantastic. That also means he was utterly useless in the first half.

NL-Only League: The positional flexibility is fantastic. The power is solid. He’s worth a look here. Finally.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).