Milwaukee Brewers: Who’s Left on the Third Base Market?
By Kenny Jilek
Potential Reunions
Jedd Gyorko
Gyorko is coming off of the best season of his career in 2020 with the Milwaukee Brewers. He hit for tons of power, slugging .504 and hitting nine home runs in just 42 games. This makes it all the more baffling why no one has signed him yet. The longer he stays on the market, the more his price drops and the better the chance that the Brewers can sign him.
He isn’t a guy who will hit for a high average, but he has had an above-average walk rate in each of the seasons he’s been a full-time starter since 2016 that keep his on-base numbers respectable. He’s also hit for enough power in his career to keep his hitting numbers up, and he has a 101 career OPS+.
He’s also been an above-average fielder at third base, with five Defensive Runs Saved Above Average. Every aspect of his game over his career has been just slightly above average, but there’s nothing wrong with that. If you fill a roster with above-average talent, you’ll probably have an above-average team.
Eric Sogard
You can say a lot about Eric Sogard, but you know exactly what you’ll get from him as a hitter each season. In many ways, he’s the exact opposite of Todd Frazier, who was a very different hitter year to year, but always kept his final numbers up. Sogard does the same things, but luck has drastically changed his numbers every year.
He’s a guy that simply puts the ball in play and hopes for the best. His hard-hit percentage and exit velocity haven’t been above the 6th percentile since those things started to be tracked in 2015. However, his strikeout percentage and whiff percentage are always above the 80th percentile, and in 2020 his whiff percentage was 100th percentile.
In 2019, his batted balls dropped in for hits a lot more, and he hit .290, but he came back down to earth in 2020, hitting just .209. Luck isn’t always the best strategy, but no one is clamoring to pick up a 34-year-old undersized third baseman with little to no power.
Minor league contracts are never a bad thing, and if he comes out of spring training playing well, then he could get another shot in the hot corner in 2021.
Next. Crew Reunites with Travis Shaw on Minor League Deal. dark
Ultimately, with Turner gone, the Milwaukee Brewers should look to stockpile guys with cheap and minor league contracts and hope one of them catches lightning in a bottle out of spring training. If you have four or five guys that have borderline major league bats, one of them is bound to succeed and without any great choices left, that’s the best way to attack the third base situation.