Gyorko Awaits Draft Dreams
June 07, 2010 12:05 AM | General
June 7, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Arguably the greatest slugger to don a West Virginia uniform, hometown hero Jedd Gyorko awaits his professional league fate on Monday evening as the Major League Baseball Draft airs on the MLB Network beginning at 7 p.m. The event will cover both the first round and the supplemental round.
Breaking down Gyorko's game are draft experts Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com and Nathan Rode of Baseball America. Both have had extensive talks with scouts and MLB personnel, allowing them to fully analyze every aspect of Gyorko’s game.
 |
|
| Jedd Gyorko's most notable aspect is his bat, according to several scouts
WVU Photographic Services |
Gyorko has been widely discussed as a unique player in this year’s draft class, meriting a possible first-round choice. Being the first player to hold a career batting average over .400 at WVU, the humble and hard-working athlete has an advanced bat in a year where many analysts believe such is missing from the college level. As a result, his draft stock has soared because he can simply hit for both power and average, and has been able to spray the ball to any part of the field.
“Considering that this year is so down in college hitters, any time a guy shows that he is an advanced college hitter, a team is going to jump on him especially in a down year,” Rode said last Thursday. “Because this year is short on those types of guys, he can easily move up and he obviously has value being a good college hitter. It wouldn’t surprise me if he goes higher because of what he’s proved over the last three years.”
For a 5-foot-10 athlete with a stocky build, Gyorko has surprised many by his deceiving power. As a freshman in WVU’s final game against Cincinnati, he was recommended to sit out for the remainder of the contest after injuring his left shoulder diving for a ball in the fourth inning. His next at-bat, he drilled an opposite-field home run, leaving coach Greg Van Zant and his teammates astonished.
Gyorko has left marks on the WVU Shell Building beyond the left field wall in Hawley Field, considered a barometric landmark for power. And arguably one of his best shots, one that is indicative of what he can do at the next level, came during his sophomore season at Notre Dame. Facing Irish ace Cole Johnson, Gyorko drove a pitch down the right field line for a three-run home run on a day when swirling winds were certain to leave balls in the yard.
Whether he’s hitting balls over the wall, through the outfield gaps or just through the infield, it all starts with Gyorko’s plate approach.
“Jedd has a good approach at the plate and also has good power,” Mayo said of Gyorko’s strengths. “He’s got great bat speed and shows great plate discipline and plate recognition, and has very quick hands.”
Mayo echoes the notion that Gyorko’s profile raises significantly based on the small availability of great college hitters.
“When it comes to drafting a guy like Jedd who has an advanced college bat in a draft with few great college hitters, and you compare it to drafting an upside high school pitcher, when push comes to shove they’ll go with the college bat. A lot of teams want to go with the big, proven college hitter, and his ability to hit so well really helps him in a draft like this one.”
What might set Gyorko apart from several hitters in this year’s class is his ability to transition from metal to wood. His consistent contact at the plate combined with his solid swing mechanics, which begins with an open stance at the plate and heavy wrist action with his swing, makes scouts believe that he is not a product of “metal base hits.”
“He works at-bats, he’s working counts usually,” said Rode of Gyorko, who averaged nearly four pitches per plate appearance last season. “He puts himself in a favorable position. It looks like he has an idea and a plan out there that is very important if you want to succeed at the next level in terms of hitting. Some see some power and some say he’s got some pop at the plate. That lends well in trying to hit at the next level, especially transitioning from metal to wood.”
For his career, Gyorko put up stunning numbers in several areas, but perhaps none more than in his situational statistics. He owns a 92/75 walk-to-strikeout ratio, hit .508 (98-for-193) against left-handers, .364 (183-for-503) against right-handers, .398 (94-for-236) with runners in scoring position, .341 (75-for-220) with two outs and .321 (87-for-271) with two strikes. He even was walked intentionally 10 times, including eight last season.
Gyorko has been labeled as being close to big-league ready with his bat, and is one of the best players in this year’s draft in terms of strike-zone judgment, according to Baseball America. And when the summer league stage was as big as possible at the Cape Cod League last year, he began to catch the attention of several Major League ballclubs after being one of the top offensive players in the league.
 |
|
|
|
“His performance at the Cape Cod League this past summer was huge,” Mayo added. “That is a top-level, wooden-bat league. Teams will pick apart a player’s swing mechanics in that league, and nothing beats having the actual experience of playing there. Jedd has shown that he has great bat speed and hand speed, and with that he possesses a wooden-bat swing where he can hit for extra bases, as opposed to some players who have ridiculous numbers with a metal bat but cannot convert. Playing well at the Cape certainly magnifies his value.”
“Guys definitely remember that,” Rode said. “It puts him on a scout’s radar and they have it in the back of their mind, but now they just need to keep watching him and see if the mechanics in his swing will translate to wood. It obviously did last summer.”
Gyorko, who worked out with the Boston Red Sox and San Fransisco Giants last week, continues to face questions about his true fielding position at the professional level. He was recruited as a second baseman at WVU and played one season there, committing just nine errors in 259 chances in 2008. He has been stellar with his glove in two seasons at shortstop, recording a career-best .973 fielding percentage this past year.
While his glove has been reliable, the position he plays is dependent on his range as well as his offensive ability.
“I haven’t heard a firm consensus. It sounds like either second or third base,” Rode said. “He’s not a real tall guy so you can’t say, ‘Hey, go to first base and swing the bat,’ because he doesn’t have the body profile for that position. Some guys tell me they think his range will take him to second base or third base, whereas other people tell me he can be a real good offensive second baseman.
“Some don’t like him at third base because they don’t think he’ll hit for enough power, but he’ll hit for a high average. There isn’t a firm consensus on him. The easy answer is that whoever takes him likes him, and they’re going to put him wherever they like him. They’re drafting him on the bat, and they’ll let it play out positionally wherever it plays out. They’re not worried about that.”
Mayo, who has Gyorko being taken with the 24th overall pick by the Giants in his latest mock draft, draws a comparison to what he can be if he continues to improve his range.
“I think second base is probably best for him. There might be some question of whether he has enough power at third base. If he makes the move to second base, he can be an offensive-minded second baseman like Jeff Kent, who worked extremely hard to become an adequate offensive player at that position.”
Just like many players in this year’s draft, Gyorko’s selection has been tough to predict. New York Baseball Digest contributor Joe Demayo believes Gyorko will go to the Giants as well, while other publications have pin-pointed the Morgantown native at No. 31 to the Tampa Bay Rays, No. 32 to the New York Yankees or even as a supplemental first-round pick.
“Any player like Jedd is difficult to project based on his body type and wondering where he will play in the field,” Mayo explained. “He has a similar body to former first-round pick Brett Wallace. But it’s no secret that teams really love his bat and so they’ll look to find that balance. He’s an advanced hitter in this year’s draft, but the key question is always what position will he play?”
“It’s been pretty tough. One thing we’ve kind of echoed here in the office and from just about anybody covering the draft is that after the top four or five guys, when you get down to the tenth-best talent all the way to the 40th, a lot of those guys are similar,” adds Rode. “It’s kind of tough to say that a team has a certain guy lined up. There might be one team that has Jedd out there as the 10th or 15th best guy which puts him in the middle of the first round, where other teams might have him in the first supplemental. It’s been really difficult to try to gage where he’s going to land.”
The speculation and wondering will soon to come to an end as the first round unfolds on Monday night, as Gyorko and his family watch from their home in Morgantown. He has an opportunity to become WVU’s first first-round pick since former pitcher Chris Enochs was taken 11th overall by the Oakland A’s in 1997. He will also be the fourth Mountaineer baseball player from Morgantown taken in the draft, and the first since David Maust was chosen in 2001.
Tonight will possibly close a special chapter in WVU baseball history, ending a spectacular three-year career by a player who has always been proud of his roots and wouldn’t change anything about his collegiate stay. As the MLB draft unfolds, several followers in Morgantown and across the state will wait anxiously as Gyorko marches toward the apex of his baseball career.
