St. Louis Cardinals: Jedd Gyorko, a cautionary tale

The St. Louis Cardinals have many decisions to make this offseason and one might involve an infielder that could come back to bite them.

The St. Louis Cardinals have a long history of calling it quits on a player only to have the same player come back to bite them in the butt. A few examples include Luke Voit, David Freese, and Albert Pujols.

Okay, some of these haven’t directly harmed the St. Louis Cardinals but they do stand as examples of the birds having given up on a player only to watch them produce for a different team. This isn’t to say that the decision to “give up” wasn’t the right choice at the time, but does illustrate this St. Louis Cardinals trend.

Enter then the 2018 offseason and the desire to make changes. My advice to the Cardinals: look at the three examples above when considering Jedd Gyorko.

Having said that, Gyorko is a valuable name and could bring the Cardinals a great deal in return. That is a good thing unless that something in return would have Gyorko land within the National League Central.

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Gyorko will be in his final season with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2019. He will earn $13M with $5M being paid by the San Diego Padres. This contract season would be a great one to hold onto Gyorko since he will likely play for a large contract in 2020.

Oh, and there’s this little thing called a $13M team option for 2020. Gyorko would do well to play well to get the St. Louis Cardinals to offer him this team option. In other words, Gyorko has plenty of reasons to play well in 2019.

If Gyroko does play well, then the Cardinals would be wise to hold onto him. At the same time, the Cardinals would do well to shop Gyorko if/when he plays well. A player in his final contract year with a team option built-in is often the type that interests other teams.

But like the names listed above, the cautionary tale is that Gyorko could end up with a team wherein he makes a large impact and helps the said team find the postseason.

The two-edged sword of Gyorko will need to play out this winter but I hope he remains a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. At least until he proves his worth and then the Cards can use him as trade bait at the deadline when the team knows best what it needs.

What would you do with Gyorko? If you sent him elsewhere, where would you NOT send him? Thanks for reading!