NEW YORK — Globe Life Field, new home of the Texas Rangers as of 2020, has a 50 x 150 foot scoreboard above right field that provides some new-school baseball to fans. Whichever team is hitting, its full lineup is presented with position and, instead of keeping with tradition, OPS rather than batting average.
This change, suggested by Rangers baseball operations, used to agitate Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa when he was playing for Texas the past two seasons. He felt it made him look bad because he usually hit for a good average with little power and that resulted in a low OPS, which is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. Kiner-Falefa believed the Rangers were presenting a favorable image to his then-and-now teammate, a slugging outfielder who was dealt to the Yankees before last summer’s trade deadline.
Joey Gallo is a two-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner who also happens to be the poster boy for the modern-day three-true-outcomes player. A career .206 hitter, he accumulated 2,505 plate appearances over 657 career games through May 16 and 58% of them ended with a strikeout (922), walk (376) or home run (163).
“Joey is the exact opposite of me,” Kiner-Falefa said. “Everybody hates on his batting average and everybody talks down on my OPS. I looked up there last year when I was hitting .270 and all I saw was a .670 OPS.”
Gallo says he avoids looking up at scoreboards because his average usually is among the lowest of any player who gets regular at-bats. He has hit as high as .210 just once since reaching the big leagues in 2015, finished below .200 two seasons in a row, and 32 games into this season he is hitting .191, thanks to a recent surge. Yankees fans, frustrated by the strikeouts, have booed him regularly.
In a pre-game talk with NJ Advance Media last week, Gallo reflected on the boos, strikeouts, low batting averages and his inner struggle to accept himself. Brett Gardner’s successor in left field detailed how he battled inner demon before realizing he brings value even when hitting for a low average and racking up strikeouts. He provided forceful pushback to suggestions by fans and media that he should hit ground balls to the vacated shortstop hole to beat shifts.
Standing at his Yankee Stadium locker, Gallo said he has tried to change the the type of hitter he is. As he was speaking, his two-time batting champion teammate appeared.
“This is what happens all the time when you’re slumping,” Gallo said, glancing at his locker neighbor. “I wish I was DJ LeMahieu. I don’t get how he hits the ball so much. A lot of times, I wish I was a contact hitter, but I’m playing the hand that I was dealt.”
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A 6-foot-5, 250-pounder, Gallo was a big kid who always swung hard and for the fences. Growing up in Las Vegas, he he hit a lot of long home runs, but when you combine a big strike zone and a long swing, there will be strikeouts. Gallo said he often has attempted to alter his swing and his approach at the plate in hopes of sacrificing a little power for more contact.
“All the time,” he said. “Multiple times throughout the year. Every year. It usually would make the slump worse because now I go up there with a less aggressive mindset. I start swinging at more pitches because I think I can hit everything and then I start changing my swing and I manipulate my angle to the ball. I’m trying to hit a ground ball to left field and getting caught late. It actually makes it worse.
“I don’t know how to be a guy who can shoot the ball the other way and play small ball, essentially. At this level, you can’t just switch. You have to play to what your strengths are.”
Left-handed power is Gallo’s biggest strength. He has played at least 120 games in a big-league season three times, and in those seasons, he averaged 40 homers while batting .205 with 196, 207 and 213 strikeouts. His 15% career walk average is nearly double the 8.4% major league average.
“I have to find value because I’m not able to get more hits,” Gallo said. “I had to work on my walk rate and take more pitches. Defensively, I knew I had to improve, too, because I don’t want to be just a slugger.”
‘I’ve always been this player’
Gallo has been called a modern-day version of Dave Kingman, the 1970s and ‘80s slugger who hit 442 career home runs for the Mets, Cubs and other clubs while usually hitting for a low average and striking out a ton. Others compare him to Adam Dunn, the former Reds first baseman who hit 462 homers from 2001-14 while batting .213 with 28.6% strikeout and 15.8% walk rates.
“It’s a different game now,” Gallo said. “Some guys can do it and some guys can’t. I wouldn’t recommend it. I do feel bad for the guys before me like Dave Kingman, who maybe didn’t get as much love as he would have in today’s game because of average and strikeouts.”
It’s been a long internal battle getting to this point. Gallo said he has been down on himself a lot throughout his career, but analytics have been a coping device that dramatically changed his mindset.
“I’ve always been this player,” he said. “I didn’t change my game to be a three-true-outcomes guy. I’ve been a three-true-outcomes guy since I was 10 years old. When I started hearing about advanced stats more and more, I liked it because it actually made me seem like a good player when everybody was saying I’m not. They have metrics now to show there’s more than this guy’s game than just looking at the scoreboard and seeing .190.”
He first started hearing criticism as a high school senior, even though he was the Gatorade National Player of the Year. As a third baseman, he hit .509 with 21 homers in 40 games for a Class 4A state championship team, but his 25 strikeouts in 121 at-bats convinced scouts that his long swing could never be fully corrected. They believed Gallo had more of a future as a right-handed power pitcher because he threw high-90s fastballs that were featured in his no-hitter and 17-strikeout games.
Gallo was picked 39th overall in the 2012 draft by Texas, but he thought he should have gone in the top 10.
“No one thought I would hit,” he said. “When teams talked to me before the draft, the narrative was, ‘You strike out a lot and you’re going to get exposed.’”
The book on Gallo was right to a degree. He’s been exposed a lot, but he slugged his way to the majors by 2015 and was there for good by 2017, when he hit .209 with 41 homers, 196 strikeouts in 449 at-bats and an .869 OPS. The next year was a carbon copy: .206 with 40 homers and 207 strikeouts.
Since, he batted a career-high .253 with 22 homers in 70 games during an injury-riddled 2019, then bottomed out to .181 with 10 homers in 57 games during the COVID-shortened 2020. He finished last season at .199 with 38 homers, an American League-high 111 walks and an MLB-high 213 strikeouts.
Gallo was at his worst last season following his trade. In 58 games with the Yankees, he hit .160 with 13 homers and 88 strikeouts in 188 at-bats. Media and fans insisted Gallo wasn’t a good fit for New York, and the criticism re-started early this season, when he hit .145 with no homers in his first 16 games. He still was striking out a lot and not being rewarded for hard-hit balls.
That’s when one of the hitting coaches delivered a message: You’re just having really bad luck. Keep doing what you’re doing.
“It sucks to hear, but I was like, ‘I know I’m hitting the ball well,’” Gallo said. “There are different ways to look at it. Sometimes it might look on paper like you’re struggling and the advanced metrics will tell you that you’re hitting the ball really well and you should be getting rewarded.”
‘Just hit the ball the other way!’
Defensive shifts affect Gallo as much or more than any other hitter. For almost all of his at-bats, including 96 percent this season, Gallo has hit with the third baseman and/or shortstop playing on the right side of the infield with the second baseman in shallow right field. Sometimes there’s even been four outfielders.
A big opponent of shifts, Gallo is glad they’ll be outlawed, starting in 2023, per baseball’s new CBA.
“I’ve never complained about the shift, but when you’re talking about improving the game and attracting more fans, every other sport is creating offense,” Gallo said. “Every basketball game is 120-110. But we suppress offense in today’s game. Obviously, getting rid of the shift will help us as hitters, but it also will help the game grow with more action.”
Gallo believes the ban could add 20 points to his batting average.
“I have to deal with it for another year, but it’ll be nice to hit a ball hard on the ground to the right side and get rewarded,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I hit a ball into the hole and got a hit. That’s why you have to adjust.”
Part of the adjusting was becoming one of the game’s best bunters. His seven bunt hits (in 10 attempts) last season led the American League and tied for the MLB high with Colorado Rockies infielder/outfielder Garrett Hampson (7-for-18).
“What’s funny to me is people say, ‘Learn how to bunt,’” Gallo said. “Well, I led the league.’ But if it’s a 2-0 or 3-1 count, I’m not looking for a single. I’m trying to do what I’m paid to do, and that’s hit the ball out of the ballpark. But now teams are leaving a guy at third base, so I can’t bunt to third anymore. Now they’re just leaving the shortstop hole open.”
Gallo hears those who say he should simply hit a ground ball to the left side for an easy single.
“I try,” he said. “It’s extremely hard. As a power hitter, it’s hard to control where you’re hitting the ball. My whole life I was taught to hit the ball as far as I can to center field. It’s different for a guy like Kiner-Falefa. He’s not a power guy. Since he was a little kid, Kiner was smaller, so he learned how to hit holes. I didn’t. I was a big guy. I always could hit the ball out of the ballpark. Then you get to the pro ball and you’ve got to try to hit the ball the other way when I really wasn’t ever taught that.
“With the shift still being a thing, you have to try. But it’s almost offending when people say, ‘Just hit the ball the other way,’ because it’s definitely not that (bleeping) easy!”
Prepare for the HR avalanche
To appreciate Gallo, you have to soak in some of his analytical statistics. According to Baseball Savant, his 90% average exit velocity on batted balls this year is in the top 35%, his 50.9% hard-hit ratio is in the top 8% and his 13.8% walk rate also is in the top 10%.
His old-school stats are on the rise, too. He was batting .257 with three homers, seven walks and a .381 on-base percentage in his last 12 games through Monday.
“I do feel like he’s starting to gain a little bit of traction,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I feel like he’s making some steady improvement.”
Yankees GM Brian Cashman gave up a lot last summer to get Gallo and lefty reliever Joey Rodriguez (who they since traded) from Texas — three ranked prospects, plus a promising starting pitcher who already is in the Rangers’ rotation after starting 2021 in Double-A. Although Gallo didn’t do much last season and hasn’t been a big factor thus far this year, Cashman still believes it’s a matter of time, although it’ll probably have to happen this year. Gallo, 28, will be a free agent after the season and likely will sign elsewhere. he is earning $10.275 million this season.
“He’s a really talented player,” Cashman said. “He has a chance every time he’s at the plate to change whatever’s happened prior. The fact that we’re winning our games as much as we have, there’s a lot of gas in that tank in terms of contribution that I think is still there for us to be had.
“It reminds me when we traded for Aaron Boone (in 2003). He struggled, but he’s going to be remembered in history for one swing of the bat. Gallo is helping us. He can help us defensively. He can help us offensively. There are a lot of different ways he can contribute. There’s still obviously a hell of a lot of time on the clock for him, whether it’s contributing in one big game or one big series or obviously a floodgate and avalanche of success that he’s certainly capable of.
“But I can just tell you this: He works his ass off. He cares a great deal. He’s bonded with his teammates. And over time, I certainly think he’ll find that higher ground on a more consistent basis. I’m not worried about Joey Gallo.”
Kiner-Falefa is a believer, too. He’s seen Gallo at his best in Texas and expects the Yankees will get it at some point, too.
“Joey hasn’t been hot,” he said. “When he gets hot, it’s incredible. He hits about 40 homers every year and he hits them in spurts. His average will be unbelievable in that span, but for fans it’s not enough to make up for what he doesn’t do.”
Kiner-Falefa hopes more people start appreciating the positives. That’s what Gallo wants, too.
“I know this is a tough fan base and it’s different for me,” Gallo said. “I understand that I’m going to get crushed for average because if someone comes to a game, they’re going look at the scoreboard and see I’m hitting .190 and say, ‘You suck.’ But that doesn’t really tell all the story.”
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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.
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