St. Louis Cardinals: With two weeks left, who’s in negative WAR?

Jedd Gyorko: -0.3 fWAR, -0.1 bWAR

Jedd Gyorko is a sad tale. A player hired-in to be an infield super-sub ends up being an everyday player but then gets busted down to being used less than a sub would. And then gets the tag, fairly or unfairly, of being injury-prone. All within the span of about three years.

Gyorko was traded at this year’s trade deadline for pitcher Tony Cingrani, whose injuries were not expected to alleviate until next season at the earliest. That goes to show you how lightly-regarded Gyorko had become. All that is left of the Poor Mountaineer from West Virginia, Jedd, is his negative WAR for the Cardinals in 2019.

Gyorko has done nothing on the Los Angeles Dodgers, his new team, to change anybody’s minds. Until yesterday, he was actually a 10 (sic) OPS+ in 28 plate appearances for the Dodger-blue. But Gyorko hit a clutch seeing eye single through the infield with two-out in the ninth inning of the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game against the New York Mets last night.

Hopefully that will serve as an announcement to the major leagues thet “Jedd Gyorko is back”. And hopefully he stays healthy

Gyorko will always be remembered by Cardinals fans for starting opening day in 2017 at second base against the Chicago Cubs at home (over Kolten Wong!). As well as for being one of only three players, post-Albert Pujols, to hit 30 home runs for the Cardinals (and he did not even have a qualifying number of at-bats that year).