When my grandfather was a Twin Cities sportswriter for 52 years, he covered all-time great ball players such as Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, and Harmon Killebrew. They defined what it meant to be a professional hitter for generations of Minnesota sports fans, and Joe Hennessy was there to ink their stories in the daily gospel known as the sports page. He watched as these legends grinded out at-bats, went the other way for a single when needed, and avoided striking out by any means necessary.
Needless to say, the Twins did not have my grandfather in mind when they signed Joey Gallo.
And a week after the deal was announced, many in Twins territory continue to scratch their heads as they try to fit him into the 2023 blueprint. Joe’s grandson included.
Gallo is hardly the first three-true-outcome brand of player, and surely there is considerable upside to his signing. But along with the good aspects of this signing come the bad and the ugly.
The Good
Since debuting in 2015, Gallo has earned a reputation as a hulking slugger who can hit the ball a country mile. The stats under the hood suggest he is still elite in this branch of his game. Even in 2022, which is considered one of his worst seasons yet, he was among the cream of the crop when it came to max exit velocity (89th percentile), hard-hit percentage (94th), and barrel percentage (98th).
In 752 career games, Gallo has walloped 177 home runs, averaging about 38 per 162 games. That will be a welcome sight for a returning group of Twins outfielders that ranked 18th in baseball with a lackluster .392 combined slugging percentage.
His glovework is also well above average. He’s earned two gold gloves thanks to his stellar outfield jump (86th percentile) and arm strength (90th). It should be noted that he can also play center field in the inevitable event that superstar Byron Buxton needs some time off his feet.
The Bad
One of the more questionable aspects of adding Gallo is his fit in the club’s blueprint for 2023. The team already had five suitable left-handed outfielders, each with varying degrees of success and upside in the major leagues. Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach are coming back from considerable injuries, and they deserve the time and space to develop into MLB regulars. Nick Gordon can play a few infield positions if needed, but he’s probably best suited for work in the outfield and is coming off of a respectable sophomore season where he hit .272/.316/.427 (111 wRC+). He might not require a full-time role on the big league club, but he certainly deserves a roster spot.
Matt Wallner posted monster numbers in the minor leagues (.277/.412/.541) before making his big league debut in September. He has nothing left to prove at the minor league level and has a similar bat profile to Gallo’s, but for about six percent of the price. Max Kepler is still in tow at the moment, but a trade feels like almost an inevitability. He’s coming off a year where he played great defense but failed to impress with the bat for a second consecutive season. Wallner and Kepler are prime trade candidates now, but it feels like a roundabout way of securing assets since Gallo’s addition was superfluous in the first place.
Simply put, it’s a bad fit on paper.
The Ugly
Fans who couldn’t stand Miguel Sanó and his 36.4% strikeout rate are in for quite a ride. While Gallo has a much higher ceiling than the Twins’ former top prospect, he is also the only qualified hitter with a higher punch-out percentage (37.3%). He is statistically the most strikeout-prone player in the history of the game, and he has bottomed out in that regard over the past three seasons. Gallo ranked in the 1st percentile in both strikeout percentage and whiff percentage since the start of the 2020 season, making his strengths all the more baffling.
Things really took a turn for the worse when the Texas Rangers traded him to the New York Yankees at the 2021 deadline. Since that time, Gallo has an unbalanced .160/.288/.374 slash line in 638 plate appearances, which is about 11 percent worse than league-average. To put that in perspective, Sanó’s clip in his last 639 plate appearances is .202/.291/.419 – about five percent better than Gallo’s.
Like many others who have struggled upon being acquired by the big-market Yankees, there was a belief that getting Gallo out of the Big Apple could be beneficial. So when they traded him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in August, many started to buy stock in the former All-Star. However, he limped in Chavez Ravine all the same. He hit .162/.277/.393 and entered free agency at the worst point in his career thus far.
My grandpa Joe probably wouldn’t even recognize Gallo’s game as that of a major league quality player. He was used to watching guys make contact at a far greater clip in an era when batters tried to “hit it where they ain’t” instead of just aiming over the fence. The Twins didn’t consider my grandpa when they agreed to terms with Gallo – nor should they have. They signed him to be a big bat in the middle of the 2023 lineup. But if Gallo fails to live up to that hope, Twins Territory will wind up right where they find themselves right now – scratching their heads.
