Breaking Down Jedd Gyorko

Who is Jedd Gyorko? The Padre second baseman burst onto the scene in his rookie year 2013 season, providing power numbers that outpaced any reasonable expectations for a second baseman in this era of diminishing offense. Then 2014 hit, and Gyorko wallowed in batting average misery until finally succumbing to a stint on the disabled list for plantar fasciitis. After his time off. Gyorko put up respectable numbers for the remainder of the season.

As a relatively untested, young hitter, it’s natural to wonder how much of his production to date represents his talent level going forward. Has the league adjusted to Gyorko’s tendencies, with the second half of 2014 being the product of some luck-aided inflation? Or can we write off the first half entirely and blame the injury for his poor performance, with expectations of improving on his 2013 season being a real possibility?

2013 saw Gyorko putting up a .249/.301/.444 line with 23 homers and a reasonable .287 batting average on balls in play behind those numbers. Despite being his first season, he posted strikeout and walk rates at or slightly worse than league average, an impressive feat for a new hitter.

In the first half of 2014, Gyorko went downhill in every department. His strikeout rate rose, his walk rate tumbled, and his line dipped to .162/.213/.270 with a meager .192 BABIP. Injury or not, those are some alarmingly bad numbers. During his time on the DL, Gyorko spent time looking at video of his 2013 at bats and found some small but apparently important differences.

When Gyorko returned to game action, he provided offensive contributions that were even better than his rookie year. His batting line after his break was much more palatable at .260/.347/.398, a .313 BABIP, and both his walk and strikeout rates improving to levels better than league average. The only blemish was his .138 isolated slugging percentage, a far cry from the .195 value he provided in 2013. On top of that, Gyorko hit another cold spell in August, sandwiched by a big first few games and a solid month of September. Herein lies another reason to question his second half. As you may know, September numbers are difficult to trust, with many minor league pitchers and defenders up in The Show making it easier for hitters to post big numbers. Without more information, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about Gyorko the hitter going forward.

First let’s look at the batted ball data, shown in this nifty table:

Season	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB
2013 – Total	22.5%	37.6%	39.8%	6.9%	15.9%
2014 – First Half	16.6%	44.4%	39.1%	8.5%	8.5%
2014 – Second Half	27.0%	42.8%	30.3%	8.7%	10.9%

In the early part of the year, Gyorko traded a large portion of his line drives for ground balls, not an advisable change for a hitter who relies on power. Later, his line drives spiked at the expense of many of his fly balls, while his ground ball percentage stayed elevated relative to his rookie year. As for his spray numbers?

Season	Location	% of Total	AVG	SLG	ISO
2013	Pull	41.6%	.368	.671	.303
2013	Center	35.0%	.370	.630	.260
2013	Opposite	23.3%	.214	.405	.190
2014	Pull	41.9%	.286	.476	.190
2014	Center	34.0%	.301	.417	.117
2014	Opposite	24.1%	.239	.423	.183

Notice the huge drop in power and average to his pull side and center, with a very minor improvement to the opposite field in average. The percentages are nearly identical, so there isn’t a big change in approach picked up by these figures. So here we get a picture of a guy who put the ball on the ground more during the early portion of 2014, and lost some ability to drive the ball even when he did get it in the air (notice the decrease in home runs per fly ball).

His plate discipline changes do not give us much reason to worry going forward. In 2014 he made a bit more contact in the strike zone, less outside of it, and swung a bit less overall compared to 2013. All are relative improvements in the traditional understanding of what you want a hitter to do. This coupled with his spray percentages staying consistent knock out two potential concerns.

Let’s look more closely at his swings to see if his injury may have affected his numbers, or if an unrelated change caused his numbers to plummet. If we can pinpoint a reason for his batted ball changes from the foot issue, we can more easily expect Gyorko to be the hitter we hoped for when he’s presumably fully healthy this year. First, for comparison’s sake, a shot of Gyorko from his healthy, productive rookie season, followed by one of Mike Trout’s swings from the same year:

As you can see, a lot of good things happen in Gyorko’s swing. He has a pretty good path to the plane of the ball, getting his hands level near his back hip. His hands get thrown through contact into pretty good extension, overall a fairly direct and efficient hand path with a long intersection with the flight of the ball. His lower half works well, with decent balance leading up to contact and a good hip thrust as his body squares up to the pitch. He gets his front heel down just after his hands start to descend, and it stays connected all the way through extension.

Closer inspection and comparison to the similar swing of Mike Trout help clue us in to where he comes up a bit short. From the pitcher’s view, his bat stays too vertical as his hands start to bring it down behind his body. On this low-and-inside pitch, it doesn’t affect him. On pitches a bit higher and/or away, his bat not getting to a more severe angle forces it to have to come around the ball too much. It doesn’t mean he can’t hit those pitches; it just means he isn’t able to lift the ball as consistently with his natural swing. Also from this angle, there is a slight tendency for his lower half to slide out a bit toward the third base dugout as he turns. Neither of these things hurts him tremendously, but instead they simply make him profile as more of a pull-side power guy. The slight balance issue probably contributes to the lower batting averages he’s posted, since it leaves him susceptible to timing issues and good off-speed pitches.

From the side view, it is apparent that his hands and back elbow start to drop at the same time and move together throughout the first half of his bat path. Compare that to Trout, where you can see a noticeable separation of the hands and elbow. This is a move that helps him stay through the middle of the field longer as well as delay the commitment of the hands on off-speed pitches. In the lower half, there is a slight drift of his pelvis forward relative to his head, and he pinches the back knee in a bit earlier and more than a guy like Trout does. Again, not a death sentence, but slight inefficiencies nonetheless.

So up until now, we get the picture of a talented hitter who has the swing to back his 2013 numbers up, including his less than star-level batting average.

How did his injury affect the swings he showed in early 2014? To know what to look for, we have to be clear on how his injury could manifest. Without getting into a lecture on plantar fasciitis, our main checkpoint is his left foot. Plantar fasciitis can make it extremely painful to put pressure on the affected foot, so we should see some evidence of favoring with compensatory changes that possibly made for more ground balls and weaker contact overall. Here are two swings from the month leading up to his stay on the DL, the first being a home run on May 10:

And the second, a double to right-centerfield on May 25:

In both you can see there’s a little more instability in his front side, with the outside part of his foot seeming to carry the bulk of his weight. In the front view of the first swing, you can see space under his heel the whole swing, and he really rolls to the outside of it by the time he gets through the ball. In the second swing, he only ever gets the outside part of his heel down, and his hips really slide out from under him away from the plate.

These changes may seem slight, but the difference of having his foot be able to drive directly into the ground versus putting weight on the outside of the foot makes a huge difference in force production. Go try to do squats with your feet rolled to the outside. Then please don’t send me your medical bills for your sprained ankle treatments afterward.

This loss in force generated by the lower half rendered him unable to drive the ball in most of the strike zone. Take a look at these nifty charts courtesy of Gyorko’s FanGraphs player page, showing offensive Runs Above Average per 100 pitches (RAA/100P). First 2013:

Then 2014:

Both are from the catcher’s perspective. The whole thing looks a lot more blue in 2014, with the biggest red blip being down and in. His 2013 chart is a bit more uniform and shows a lot more portions of the zone having positive values. It appears that his lower half instability affected his abilities in every part of the zone but down and in, where his natural hand path was able to pick up the slack.

The important piece of the story for predicting his 2015 success is how he looked coming off the injury, out of the walking boot and supposedly having made some changes. First are two pitches Gyorko gets a little fooled on, having to catch the ball out in front where it would most hurt him if he had no ability to carry weight on his front foot. Here’s a ground ball single from July 30:

And then a double down the left field line on August 13:

In the first swing you can really see his hips slide out from the front angle, but he’s able to put enough weight into the front foot that his hands can put enough into the ball to hit it hard for a single. The second swing is the same story, with his front foot staying flush with the ground well into his follow-through, giving his hands a strong enough base to get a solid double on a well-executed breaking pitch down in the zone.

Lastly, here’s a ball he hits for a double to left-center on September 10:

Here we can see some of the same roll to the outside of his front foot as earlier in 2014, with the notable difference being how long he can keep the weight more on his heel rather than the toes. Even when the foot rolls, he still has enough of the strongest part of his foot to work from to drive the ball effectively.

All in all, Gyorko appears to have a lot of upside in a presumably healthy 2015. He still has room to improve his swing, and probably has enough funk in his lower half that he won’t be challenging for any batting titles anytime soon. With all the information gleaned from looking at his swing, I would be more than willing to bet on him reaching the Fans’ projection of a .260-ish average with 20 homers this year, with a chance for a bit more in both categories on account of him getting more used to what Major League pitchers have to offer.