Jedd Gyorko has been the 19th best hitter by xwOBA according to Statcast. That pretty much sums up what you need to know. His second half in 2016 was amazing and not easy to understand. He hit 23 home runs but only 6 doubles. I, personally, just assumed this must have been some odd streak of luck and wasn’t paying much attention in my leagues. All last year he hit .243 but his BABIP was at .244, suggesting that at least on the batting average side he was pretty unlucky; which was somewhat weird because his batted ball profile was actually really favorable. His hard hit % was right around 35% with a GB/FB ratio around 1. With a contact rate around 76% you’d expect more of a .260-270 batting average. Well 2017 things have continued to look good.

This year Gyorko has maintained a good batted ball profile. His GB/FB is right at 0.95 and his Soft/Medium/Hard %’s look great at 13%/54%/33%. Some positive gains can be seen in his plate discipline. Gyorko’s O-Swing% has gone down from 30% in 2016 to 21.5% this year. The SwStr% is down a touch with his Contact% up a bit, as you’d expect. So this means the pieces are all in place for him to continue hitting well. The BABIP is responsible for the huge start. Currently sitting at .396 we have a luck dragon that is trying to make up for 2016 in a hurry. This obviously won’t continue at it’s current pace but at the very least it’s a nice reassurance there isn’t some unknown factor in Gyorko’s game that prevents him from running with a solid BABIP.

So despite the variance, we can get an idea of what kind of hitter Gyorko should be viewed as going forward. The batted ball profile and the power are certainly for real; we’ve got more than enough data at this point to prove this. We should see Gyorko sit in the 25-35 home run range for a while if he keeps things up. The batting average won’t be the .338 he’s at right now, but it also won’t be the .243 from last year. I’d reasonably expect .270-.280 going forward. Thankfully he’s earned the right to some consistent playing time and given he’s been hitting cleanup in the Cardinal’s lineup for a few weeks now, we should expect 90-110 RBI’s and 80-90 runs. Carpenter and Fowler are fantastic bats to have in front of him in the lineup, both who always have stellar OBPs.

Gyorko has 2B/3B/SS eligibility in all leagues right now. Barring another big injury to Diaz I would not expect him to regain SS eligibility for next year, but certainly enjoy it while it lasts. Among third basemen he should be valued in the Kyle Seager/Evan Longoria/Justin Turner range, based on where their stats were last year; so in the top 8-12 third basemen (not all that dissimilar to Matt Carpenter‘s value). Gyorko’s 2B eligibility should continue into the future as he does get some starts there as well. Among 2B he’s going to be similar to Rougned Odor or Matt Carpenter (with a downside of a more Jonathan Schoop type). This would also put him in the top 8-12 range for second basemen. For a guy coming off the waiver wire in all but the deepest leagues that’s not half bad.