Milwaukee Brewers: Bringing Jedd Gyorko Back Should be on To-Do List

We don’t know what the offseason holds for the Milwaukee Brewers, but picking up Jedd Gyorko’s team option should be on the to-do list.

With David Stearns at the helm, we never truly know what the offseason has in store for the Milwaukee Brewers. He could go out and sign Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas level players in the same offseason, make a big trade as he did for Christian Yelich, or spend the offseason loading the roster with several bounce-back candidates on cheap deals.

However, one move that should be made this offseason is picking up Jedd Gyorko’s 2021 team option.

To put it simply, it has been a rough season for the Brewers at the plate, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Sure, we’ve seen some 19 and 18 run performances this month, but by and large, there has been a lot more bad than good. As a team, Milwaukee ranks 25th in team average, 21st in team OPS – which is up several spots due to some recent performances – and their 4.29 runs per game ranks 21st as well and has also received a boost after a few high-scoring games recently.

Yet, through the inconsistent play at the plate, there has been one steady performer, and no, it isn’t Chrisitan Yelich or Keston Hiura, but the aforementioned Gyorko.

Very quietly, Gyorko has put together the best statistical season of his career, and yes, I know it’s a shortened season, but nonetheless still his best. In 119 plate appearances, his slash line of .272/.353/.563 are all career highs, as is his .916 OPS, which is by far the best on this Brewers team in 2020.

The underlying numbers tell a similar story about Gyorko’s success this season. According to Statcast, while his strikeout rate is up, so is his walk rate is up, and his hard-hit rate is over nine percent higher than his career average.

On top of that, Gyorko’s barrel rate – which measures how often a batted ball has an exit velocity of at least 98 mph and falls into a specific launch angle starting between 25-31 degrees, a.k.a crushing the ball – of 16.4 percent is double that of his career average and ranks in the 96th percentile of all baseball players this season. And oh yeah, he has a wRC+ of 137 and provides some positional flexibility, a trait that we know Stearns and Craig Counsell covet.

Due to the Milwaukee Brewers’ lack of offensive production, Gyorko has become an everyday player, but in an ideal scenario and the scenario that I’m sure Stearns imagined Gyorko being in when the Brewers signed him, is in a platoon facing primarily left-handers. This season, Gyorko’s OPS against lefties is an impressive 1.141 compared to .756 against righties.

With that said, this isn’t an ideal situation that the Brewers find themselves in at the moment – hopefully, next year, they will – but Gyorko has still provided this offense with some juice against righties with four home runs and an OPS+ of 101, just above league average.

As far as what it will take to get Gyorko back, well, that’s already built into his deal. Per Spotrac, Gyorko was signed to a contract with a base salary of $1 million for the 2020 season and a team option for 2021 with a base salary of $4.5 million. For the small-market and cost-conscious Milwaukee Brewers, that is a notable jump in base salary, but it’s a jump worth paying for.

In what has been a frustrating year at the plate for this Brewers ball club as a whole, Jedd Gyorko has provided a steady presence when they needed it most. There’s no reason not to bring him back for another season, even if he isn’t an everyday player in 2021.