In defence of Joey Gallo
The vexing Joey Gallo saga is over.
Well, the positional player portion, at least.
The most perplexing baseball player of his generation, Gallo requested, and received, his unconditional release from the lowly Chicago White Sox over the weekend. Playing on a minor league deal, the flawed slugger went 2-for-20 during spring training, with 11 strikeouts, before laying down his befuddling bat.
At 31, Gallo will now attempt to become a pitcher, because what else is there to do when even a 121-loss team is unable – or unwilling – to find you an everyday spot?
For all the vitriol and ridicule, though, I always liked Joey Gallo. I still do, in fact. Sure, he is enigmatic. And yes, reams of statistical evidence points to a historically unproductive big league career. But Gallo is a good guy who achieved more than most of us can merely dream of. The raw tools were compelling and the potential was intoxicating – even if the results coalesced to confound.
Accordingly, as this Tebow-esque announcement sparks a fresh wave of discourse, I will nail my colours to the mast and proclaim, for all the world to hear, that Joey Gallo was a very talented ballplayer, contrary to prevailing wisdom. And far from being an egregious drain on team resources, he was an under-appreciated asset throughout his major league career.
A first round draft pick with prodigious power, Gallo debuted with the Rangers in 2015 and was swiftly wedged into a Three True Outcomes pigeonhole. If Gallo did not hit a home run or draw a walk, he typically struck out. Adam Dunn became an apt archetype, and the league quickly figured out how to nullify the 6-foot-5 masher.
Nevertheless, Gallo carved out a compelling – if not overtly dominant – big league career. A two-time All-Star with two Gold Gloves, the Nevada native topped 40 home runs in consecutive seasons – 2017 and 2018 – while displaying genuine affection for the game. Stellar defensive skills complemented his sporadic thunder and incongruous walk rate, creating a toolsy profile that polarised evaluators.
To wit, in 2021, despite a mountain of whiffs, the Yankees took a shot on that underlying pedigree, trading four prospects to Texas for Gallo and Joely Rodríguez. Admittedly, Gallo performed terribly in the Bronx – hitting .159 with 25 home runs and 194 strikeouts in 140 games while morphing into a laughingstock – but I will always defend Brian Cashman for making that trade. I applauded it at the time. I enjoyed it when it happened. And I will not indulge in revisionist history.
Indeed, whether you liked him or not, Joey Gallo was a Yankee out of central casting. There was the iconic name, shared with a mafia mobster. There was the Italian-American heritage, forever synergetic with New York. There was the booming lefty swing, taking aim at the short right field porch. Throw in dashing good looks and a sprinkle of mercurial mystery, and Yankee fans were right to dream about Joey Gallo’s pinstriped potential. He was only 27 upon joining the Bronx Bombers, and the prospect of him teaming with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton – fellow hulking giants – excited me, if nobody else.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Gallo was castigated for underperformance, with overbearing fans jeering routine strikeouts and chastising his unique personality. Such was the invective, Gallo withdrew into an isolated shell, holed up in his New York apartment, afraid of public admonishment. That Gallo battles anxiety, in addition to facial tic disorder, was rarely acknowledged, and some Yankee fans should seriously contemplate their mistreatment of a guy who never stopped trying – despite discouraging results.
“I really grew up a Yankee fan, and all I wanted to do was play for the Yankees,” Gallo infamously told the New York Post in a melancholy expose, long after being traded to the Dodgers. “I’ll probably never have a chance to play for the Yankees again. That was my opportunity, and now I’m known as the guy who fucking sucked for the Yankees. That part is tough, and I have to live with that for the rest of my career, and the rest of my life.”
For the record, I do not see Joey Gallo as ‘the guy who fucking sucked for the Yankees.’ I do see him as a tragic Yankee, but also a classic Yankee, in lore and potential aura, whose self-sabotaging bat undermined a poetic fantasy of unlikely attainment. To me, Joey Gallo is more Joe Pepitone than Kevin Maas – a precocious paradox wrapped inside a mystery. Somewhere, there is a universe in which Joey Gallo is a great Yankee. We just do not inhabit it.
Look, I get it – Joey Gallo is quantifiably one of the worst players to receive such an abundance of professional playing time. In major league history, 2,076 players have logged at least 3,000 plate appearances, and Joey Gallo ranks joint-2,075th in batting average, at .194. Likewise, among that same cohort, only one player has ever topped Gallo’s 38% strikeout rate. By the same token, however, only 61 of those players bettered Joey’s walk rate, which eclipsed that of legends like Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Gary Sheffield. Gallo even out-walked Kevin Youkilis, the Greek god of walks, so there were redeeming qualities beneath the chronic swing-and-miss.
Most tellingly, Joey Gallo has the most career home runs of any player with a career batting average below .200 – a dubious honour, sure, but also the kind of anomalous accolade that gestures to the stardust that once seasoned his fantastical future.
Ultimately, when all is said and done, in the curious case of Joey Gallo, perspective is sorely needed. Nobody who plays 939 major league games sucks. Nobody drafted in the first round sucks. Nobody picked for two All-Star Games sucks. Nobody who hits 41 home runs in a season sucks. Nobody acquired by the Yankees and Dodgers sucks. Not in the grand scheme of things, anyway.
Sure, it is all relative, but the cautionary tale of Joey Gallo should teach us to have humility and respect athletes whose worst day at the stadium eclipses the maximum mere mortals could ever muster.
In closing, I really like Joey Gallo. I find him fun to watch – or, perhaps more accurately, I’m routinely befuddled by his rare melding of elite potential and stupendous profligacy. I always believed in his ability, and I’m sad that he will never take another big league at-bat.
And what of his plans to become a pitcher? Well, he does have a cannon arm, which ranked in the 95th percentile among major leaguers as recently as 2021, so the raw materials are there – as ever. Still, it remains highly unlikely that we will ever see Joey Gallo on a big league mound – that strikeouts, his lifelong nemesis, will finally become his friend. I would love to see it happen – especially with the Yankees, in lyrical redemption – but the odds are pretty long. Nevertheless, I’m rooting for you, Joey. You are a likeable guy who deserved more.
