The San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals have come to terms to swap Jon Jay for Jedd Gyorko. The trade fills a need for both teams as the Padres were looking to fill a need at a reasonable price and the Cardinals were in need of a utility player.
Gyorko has been strong with his glove, playing at second base, short stop and third base. However, his best offensive output was during his rookie season when he hit 23 home runs, notably doing damage at Petco Park.
The offensive struggles continued in 2015 as his stat-line produced: .247/.397/.694 with 16 home runs 57 RBIs, 27 walks and 107 strikeouts.
Jay struggled with injuries during the 2015 season playing in just 79 games for the club. His .210/.257/.563 were all career lows and Jay saw much of his playing time go to Randal Grichuk, Tommy Pham, Peter Bourjos and Jason Heyward in centerfield.
Jay now joins Bourjos as two players departed from the 2015 roster and should open up playing time for some internal options. However, this trade provides for much needed infield depth the Cardinals were lacking in 2015. Some pundits criticized the lack of a bench led to Jhonny Peralta, Matt Carpenter and Kolton Wong wearing out at the end of the season. Gyorko has the ability to play all three of those positions and provides power off the bench.
The Padres will be sending $7.5MM in salary and the Cardinals will assume $26MM of the remaining salary of Gyorko.
