Joey Gallo Shatters Failure Narratives

[Ted Schwerzler]

During the offseason, the Minnesota Twins decided to use $13 million on signing outfielder Joey Gallo. He had an awful time playing for the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, but a new landing spot appeared to bring fresh opportunity. Thus far, it has worked out virtually as expected.

 

Image courtesy of Mitch Stringer, USA Today

Joey Gallo is no stranger to Target Field. Just like teammate Carlos Correa, he has long enjoyed hitting at the Twins home stadium. Coming up through the Texas Rangers system, he made a mark on the ballpark when blasting a home run into the windshield of a truck parked beyond the right field wall.

Traded from Texas to New York during the 2021 season, Gallo stuck with the Yankees for 82 games a year ago. With his performance cratering to the tune of a 78 OPS+, the impatient fan base wanted him gone, and he was on his way to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Getting into just 44 games on the west coast, he wasn’t that much better posting just an 85 OPS+.

Hitting free agency for the first time in his career, Gallo had the opportunity to choose his next landing spot. Bench coach Jayce Tingler has known Gallo for some time, and the former Rangers slugger had other motivators that made the Twins a good fit. Coming in to play both the outfield and first base, there was no shortage of work with Minnesota.

Now more than halfway into his deal with the Twins, there has been a bit of everything. Gallo has missed time with a hamstring injury, he has hit gargantuan home runs, he has played three corner positions as well as centerfield, and he has seen some droughts. All of that has culminated in an .805 OPS to lead Minnesota’s qualified hitters, and his 114 OPS+ is also well above league average.

Expecting Gallo to be anything other than what he has been over the course of his career is likely a misunderstanding of who he is. Batting average is not something that will ever be important for him, and as a Three True Outcomes player, he does the other two-thirds of the equation very well. His on-base percentage is heavily rooted in his walk rate, and his slugging percentage is a by-product of an ability to blast the baseball.

On the season, Gallo has 15 homers to his credit, and although his 13.6% walk rate is below his career average, it’s still a strong showing. He has teetered with a 40% strikeout rate this season, and that’s not a great development, but largely emphasized by Minnesota having a team that swings and misses too much as a whole. Ideally Gallo could take something like three percent from his strikeout rate, add it to his walk rate, and he’d be right there with the best version of himself.

This season, the largest detractors in Gallo’s performance have come from a career-worst chase rate, combined with a career-worst whiff rate. He’s making less contact than ever, but is generating a storing quality of contact when connecting. He has solid barrel rates and hard hit percentages. With nearly 50% of the season left as a runway, some very small tweaks could take the signing over the top.

Defensively Gallo has not been the same player he has shown an ability to be over the course of his career. Some of that could likely be attributed to his hamstring injury, and more of it could be sorted as the sample size grows larger. Being able to play all three outfield positions and fill in for Alex Kirilloff at first base, Gallo will have ample opportunity to contribute in the field.

If Gallo were to simply double his production from this point forward, he’d provide Minnesota with something around $10 million in value. That is still a net-negative contract, but he’s not the anchor consistently suggested in the same breath as someone like Max Kepler.

Maybe the rest of the way doesn’t get better for Gallo, and he slogs along as just a bit above replacement level. The money spent on him wouldn’t have been worth it, but hardly hamstrings the Twins either. If he can make some tweaks, stay healthy, and settle into a consistent level of production, this has the potential to turn into a very good deal.

The Twins would have preferred to see more from Gallo thus far, but I’d bet they’re perfectly fine with where things stand, and increasingly hopeful for the rest of the way.

View full article

[tony&rodney]

I see Gallo as a player who is straining and working very hard to contribute as a Twins. He works the counts, dives for fly balls, and hustles on the bases. The effort by Gallo thus far has been laudable. I also don't believe the Twins are best served with Gallo in the lineup on a regular basis. His defense and base running may be due to an injury, and his bat has a big hole in it. Still Joey has worked hard and I appreciate his efforts.

[jmlease1]

I'm surprised to see his defensive metrics haven't been very good, because he's got such a good reputation on that side of the ball, but maybe it's more a matter of playing a bunch of 1B early, the injury, and smaller sample size? If he improves the D back to his usual standards it'll help quite a bit. Yesterday we saw a reminder that he's a smart and heady baserunner with the way he went 1st to 3rd on Vazquez's bloop single, and that will help too.

[terrydactyls]

So, to summarize, if Gallo gets better in the second half, the signing might break even.  I don't think that shatters the failure narrative.

[2wins87]

It's been a fairly successful signing overall, though I'm still not overly enamored with his performance.

Gallo is a guy who appears to have been very un-clutch over his entire career. I would generally say that there is a lot more random noise than skill in something like that, but it has been pretty consistent. 

I like to look at outcomes vs average, first with the batting runs component of WAR, which ignores all actual context, RE24 or REW, which adds the context of baserunner situations, and then WPA which adds the context of score and inning.

This year he's put up 4.9 batting runs (about 0.5 wins), an REW of 0.07, and a WPA of -0.65. For his career he's put up 40.1 batting runs (about 4 wins), an REW of 2.68, and a WPA of -1.98.  He's pretty much always been worse when you add context even in his best seasons.

I don't know how strongly to buy into this being "real", but I definitely wouldn't bet against a similar split next year.

Sometimes in big situations this year it's kind of seemed like he gets to 3 ball counts and is just trying to draw a walk rather than do damage. That could easily be confirmation bias on my part.

Maybe a more simple explanation is that he punishes mistakes but has a big hole in his swing. The bigger the situation, the more likely he is to be facing a better pitcher that is more likely to exploit the hole and not make mistakes.

He is still valuable when hitting well. His solo homer ended up being the game winner a couple days ago, and he had a couple big RBI games earlier in the year. I just don't think he's ever been quite as valuable as his WAR would suggest, and assuming he hits well enough for the rest of the season to get a bounce back contract, I wouldn't want the Twins to be the team that gives it.

[TwinsDr2021]

.191/.312/.484/.796 - 13 million

.268/.370/.379/.748 - 2 million

Not sure the first one is really all that successful.

[Brandon]

I thought Gallo signed for 11 million.  
 

I do think he has been worth exactly what we paid him maybe slightly less making his signing an ok one.  It would be nice to see him end up with 35-40 HRs this season and maybe 80-85 RBI.  

[PDX Twin]

25 minutes ago, Brandon said:

I do think he has been worth exactly what we paid him maybe slightly less making his signing an ok one.  It would be nice to see him end up with 35-40 HRs this season and maybe 80-85 RBI.  

BUT, what is the alternative? My objection to the signing was largely "Why spend the money on him?" It's not like we don't have cheap alternatives as LH power bats who play corner outfield and 1B who may well turn out to be better: Kirilloff, Larnach, and Wallner. And, of course, we also have Kepler if the youngsters don't measure up.

To me, the Gallo signing was a very poor one because we lost a huge amount of development time for those three kids and, really, didn't get much in return (unless you are trying to run up opposing pitchers' strikeout totals, which Gallo does singularly well).

[Brandon]

28 minutes ago, PDX Twin said:

BUT, what is the alternative? My objection to the signing was largely "Why spend the money on him?" It's not like we don't have cheap alternatives as LH power bats who play corner outfield and 1B who may well turn out to be better: Kirilloff, Larnach, and Wallner. And, of course, we also have Kepler if the youngsters don't measure up.

To me, the Gallo signing was a very poor one because we lost a huge amount of development time for those three kids and, really, didn't get much in return (unless you are trying to run up opposing pitchers' strikeout totals, which Gallo does singularly well).

He was signed after it appeared we lost out on resigning Correa.  The Twins were targeting several players including Gallo and Justin Turner and I forgot the third one as a backup plan.  The real question is why wasn’t Kepler traded?

[Linus]

He’s been what you could reasonably expect. Better than last year for sure. I don’t like the fit for him with the Twins but that is on the FO not the player. 

[DKrz56]

Shatters? One bad week and we are back to the failure narrative, but I guess that is how it goes when you are living and dying by the HR. 

[Guest]

Gallo is a gamer and he hustles.  That said, that level of swing-and-miss isn't whatever salary he's getting this year.  See you later, Joey, nice to know you.

[gman]

I didn't like the signing when it was made and don't like it now. It's more an opportunity lost thing. The lost opportunity was finding out about two guys sitting in 3A. We are simply treading water with him, its time to move on.

[ashbury]

I don't question his effort nor his clutchiness nor anything about his approach.  But the results this year are illusory.  Maybe it's just small samples cut up into too many pieces.  But among his 221 plate appearances for the Twins:

Team ahead: 85 PA, 1.143 OPS

Tie game: 55 PA, .642 OPS

Team behind: 81 PA, .549 OPS*

Gallo had a crucial homer the other day.  But in the long view, his contributions when the team most needs him have been less than his overall OPS suggests. 

I'm not sure I've ever watched an "empty" .800 OPS but this might be one.

*(MLB wide the disparity is not nearly so severe: OPS of .743, .728, .719.  The Twins as a team show a worse than average disparity this year, .752, .713, .667, but nothing like Gallo.)

 

[Reptevia]

Gallo is on pace to produce 56 RBI. That is $232,142.85 per RBI. Is that a “deal”?  Is that what the FO was hoping for?

[Blyleven2011]

When they signed Gallo I was not sure why , they just paid off Sano to go away ...

My thoughts were all Gallo is is a left handed  Sano with better defense  , and that  still rings between the ears ...

Sano has no mlb or minor league job  , Gallo  is lucky to be employed  in mlb  baseball  ,  I would have preferred a younger player taking his roster spot ...

It was a gamble and so far twins are on the losing end of it ...

Gallo has never been  a clutch hitter , around 200 homers with around 400 rbi's  in his career is not very productive  ...

He does strikeout well and strikeouts must be contagious because all the hitters on the team are projected to have a career percentage of strikeouts ...

Not money well spent but who knows  what the second is in store for him , find a taker at the dealine and package pagan with him please  ...

[High heat]

He is who we thought he would be!!!!! (Denny Green telling voice).

[DocBauer]

He hasn't been as bad as I feared. But he also hasn't been as good as I had hoped.

I agree his .800 OPS and OPS+ just feel hollow. I love seeing his moonshots. And he's had some key games for us. But the RBI total is pretty small, the K's are higher than expected, and the BB fewer.

If healthy healthy the second half all of his numbers should be at lest a little better, and he'll probably earn his $11M. But I still believe he and Kepler, combined, are providing no more offense than the guys at AAA, and for a whole lot more $. 

I just don't think they needed both. And I think that is being proved true.

[Whitey333]

Gallo is a career 199 hitter that is not very clutch.  He will bunch together a few bombs then go in the tank like he has done throughout his career.  I guess you don't get much for 11 mil anymore.  I never understood the signing for that much money.  Could have used that money to perhaps beef up the bullpen.  Anyway I'm expecting he won't be back next year.  I for one hope he is not back.

[Brandon]

6 hours ago, ashbury said:

I don't question his effort nor his clutchiness nor anything about his approach.  But the results this year are illusory.  Maybe it's just small samples cut up into too many pieces.  But among his 221 plate appearances for the Twins:

Team ahead: 85 PA, 1.143 OPS

Tie game: 55 PA, .642 OPS

Team behind: 81 PA, .549 OPS*

Gallo had a crucial homer the other day.  But in the long view, his contributions when the team most needs him have been less than his overall OPS suggests. 

I'm not sure I've ever watched an "empty" .800 OPS but this might be one.

*(MLB wide the disparity is not nearly so severe: OPS of .743, .728, .719.  The Twins as a team show a worse than average disparity this year, .752, .713, .667, but nothing like Gallo.)

 

Joey Gallo is this generations David Kingman.

[KnoblauchWasFramed]

1.) Are we running away with the division with him in the lineup as often as he has been?

2.) Does anyone have a memory of him winning a game with either his glove or his bat?  I bet you have a memory of him failing in at least a few key situations?

3.) There is zero chance that he is with the Twins next year.

4.) Matt Wallner keeps raking in AAA and he has outgrown the minors.

The longer we wait until we can maybe trade Kepler, as he is slowly regaining some minimal value, for some unranked Single A player in return at the deadline we waste 3-4 more weeks of development for Wallner on a team in a "pennant race" while risking the chance of Kepler reverting back to the poor hitter he actually is and causing the Twins to drop more winnable games.  Is that worth a Single A unranked player in return?  I mean. honestly, we could trade Kepler tomorrow and get the exact same return for him that we would on July 31.

There is no way the FO eats $11m on Gallo an they will roll him out there 4 games a week win lose or draw so he isn't going anywhere.  But to not find a way to roll out a Gallo/Wallner/Kepler rotation is pig headed.

[theBOMisthebomb]

54 minutes ago, Brandon said:

Joey Gallo is this generations David Kingman.

That's unfortunate because I was a Dave Kingman fan during my youth and not so much of Joey Gallo. Looking at the player comparison on BB Ref, you are fairly accurate with the comparison. 

[Riverbrian]

He's been exactly what I thought he would be.

Gallo's numbers are a lot more tolerable when you are reviewing his stats and not watching him day after day playing for your team. 

In other words... that OPS looks decent when he is not playing for your team. When he is playing for your team and you watch him day after day... you don't notice the OPS because Those K's are so painful to witness that you can't see anything else. Offensively he is hurting us. 

On the defensive side... I like him... He's solid.

For those who think he has slipped defensively this year. Put the numbers down. He's the same defensive player he has always been. 

 

 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

congrats to the FO for signing a mediocre player and achieving mediocrity!

[arby58]

14 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

So, to summarize, if Gallo gets better in the second half, the signing might break even.  I don't think that shatters the failure narrative.

Is the current Gallo really a 'failure narrative?' His OPS leads the team among qualified players. That alone suggests otherwise. For all their 'failures' the Twins remind me a bit of the much-loved 1987 Twins. They were 85-78 in the regular season - which is certainly a record this Twins team could achieve. They were well below league average in batting average, a bit above average in runs scored, and the pitching was suspect (and this team differs from them there). Still, they two decent starting pitchers, and they caught fire at the right time and won it all. Players like Gallo can get hot and carry a team for a week at a time - you need those types at the right time.

[arby58]

3 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

He's been exactly what I thought he would be.

Gallo's numbers are a lot more tolerable when you are reviewing his stats and not watching him day after day playing for your team. 

In other words... that OPS looks decent when he is not playing for your team. When he is playing for your team and you watch him day after day... you don't notice the OPS because Those K's are so painful to witness that you can't see anything else. Offensively he is hurting us. 

On the defensive side... I like him... He's solid.

For those who think he has slipped defensively this year. Put the numbers down. He's the same defensive player he has always been. 

 

 

There seems to be so much angst about Ks with fans here. It's an out - teams will have far more of them a game than players reach base safely. Sure, it's generally not productive, but it isn't the abject failure it's sometimes made out to be.  Power hitters generally strike out a lot. The career leaders in strikeouts all fit that characterization. In 1962, Harmon Killebrew struck out a career high 142 times - but also 48 home runs.

[Bodie]

I can't think of a WORSE signing by the Twins in many years. 

Anyone who shows even an occasional pulse with the Yankees is touted as an all-star (at worst).  Don't pull a Canseco in the field, and you are a gold glover!  Just show potential with one tool and you'll be a prospect into your early 30s.

He is very expensive Kingman or Adam Dunn.  A black hole anywhere in the lineup, utterly overrated on defense, and worst of all the exact opposite of what you want as a veteran leader (the lesson he shows is that you'll earn the yearly salary of a small town while producing next to nothing while doing NOTHING to adapt your game to improve yourself).

I thought coming into the season that he was about as bad of a FA signing as the Twins could have made last off-season.   Now, halfway through the season, he has been even worse than I feared.

If the front office is serious about being a contender this year, there is simply ONE option: eat half the contract and DFA him immediately.  Basically anyone can replace him as an overall player.

Leave it to the Twins to find a way to somehow get rid of a lineup albatross (Sano) and replace him with the Bizarro World version of said albatross...

 

[TwinsDr2021]

6 hours ago, arby58 said:

There seems to be so much angst about Ks with fans here. It's an out - teams will have far more of them a game than players reach base safely. Sure, it's generally not productive, but it isn't the abject failure it's sometimes made out to be.  Power hitters generally strike out a lot. The career leaders in strikeouts all fit that characterization. In 1962, Harmon Killebrew struck out a career high 142 times - but also 48 home runs.

In 1962 Harmon had 666 at bats, Gallo has 222 and has K'd 89 times(89*3 =267)

Lets not compare Joey Gallo to the guy that took 3 in the MVP voting.

Also Gallo hasn't gotten hot for a week. the most hits he has had over a 7 day period is 6, He has twice hit 4 homers in a 7 day period.

[Riverbrian]

6 hours ago, arby58 said:

There seems to be so much angst about Ks with fans here. It's an out - teams will have far more of them a game than players reach base safely. Sure, it's generally not productive, but it isn't the abject failure it's sometimes made out to be.  Power hitters generally strike out a lot. The career leaders in strikeouts all fit that characterization. In 1962, Harmon Killebrew struck out a career high 142 times - but also 48 home runs.

Good post... I'm going to argue it but it was a good post

40.1 K% is an abject failure. 

Harmon Killebrew did indeed strike out 142 times and he indeed did hit 48 home runs in that same year. That year was 1962... Harmon's K% that year was 21.3%

I understand the K argument you are making. I wouldn't use Harmon as an example 😉 but I do understand the case you are making.

What I don't understand is this:  

The Twins seemed to have assembled a pitching staff that strikes out batters like the K matters. Yet completely unafraid of the K on the offensive side. 

You can't downplay the K on the offensive side while searching for the K on the defensive side.

IMO -- We strikeout too much and Gallo is the poster boy. The K just won't bring that runner in from third base.  

In a different response to someone else you also stated:

Is the current Gallo really a 'failure narrative?' His OPS leads the team among qualified players. That alone suggests otherwise.

Leading the team in OPS among qualified players with a .782 OPS suggests to me a larger problem with the team in general. 

To me it suggests a problem with playing time distribution. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[insagt1]

k's 'generally not productive?? Try never productive. Ever. Its a wasted out. Yes cue the GIDP argument. But putting the ball in play always gives you a chance for something to happen. If players hit into same number of DP's as k's...there would be a legit argument.

Comparing Gallo to Killebrew is just plain not reasonable. How many of Gallo's HR have made a difference? A few maybe but who do you want at the plate with the game on the line, trailing by one run with two outs and a runner on 2nd or 3rd? We said the same thing about Sano. The odd chance he might hit one out is negated by the more likely event he will strikeout. While you realistically would want a power hitter up in that spot, not one who strikes out more than 40% of the time.

having said that, Gallo is a hard worker and he tries hard. Can't question his effort at all. And I don't just view his low BA as a huge negative. But he just doesn't make enough contact to see him in the lineup everyday. Still, there is half a season to go and if his bat wins a fair number of games we will applaud of course.

The Twins have a roster of players who don't make contact enough. Will that sink them? Maybe. Maybe not. You just don't cavalierly ignore this many k's game in and game out. It's an out that produces nothing. It doesn't move runners. Doesn't score a guy from 3rd with less than 2 outs. It greatly helps the pitcher wiggle out of jams, especially in extra innings where they have to deal with the ghost runner.

But all of this is still why we all watch, right? Its baseball. Played everyday. You lose one day 14-3 and win the next 1-0. We cheer and boo. We ride the crest when we win and lament the trough when we lose. Its still a great game and we love to discuss, debate and analyze everything about it. All good!