2016 Fantasy Baseball Player Profile: Joey Gallo

Joey Gallo swings the lumber with purpose. When the massive slugger, he stands 6’5” and weighs in at about 235 lbs, lays into on it flies – far. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that his power bat is the best in baseball for any man who has less than 50 games of work in the major leagues. At the same time, his game comes with a massive hole, one he was unable to overcome last season – the strikeout. Can he hit the ball enough, make enough contact, for him to matter in the second half of the 2016 season?

THE NUMBERS

Here are his rankings amongst all the prospects in baseball.

THE SKILLS

I wrote about Gallo back on May 24^th, 2016 in a Daily Trends article. The three statements below in parenthesis are from that piece. Some highlights.

Gallo can play first, third and the outfield.

In 2016 he’s appeared at first base 24 times and at third base 33 times. He hasn’t played the outfield this season but he did appear in the outfield 20 times last year with the Rangers. That flexibility would be a nice addition to a fantasy squad.

Gallo has as much raw power as any man in baseball, anywhere in the world. He can blast it as well as anyone. 

Gallo’s power is an 80 on the 20-80 scouting scale. No one in the game has more oomph in their swing.

In 38 games at the major league level he’s hit seven homers. That’s a 25-30 pace over the course of a season. If he posted 500 at-bats and didn’t reach that level I would be shocked.

Take a look at his minor league work.

Gallo had 40 homers in 2013.

Gallo had 42 homers in 2014.

Gallo had 23 homers in 2015 in just 87 games.

Gallo has 19 homers in 70 games this season.

In 123 games at Triple-A in his career he’s hit 33 homers.

Gallo has a .595 SLG in the minors.

Gallo has an easy swing that launches balls to all parts of the yard. He’s usually a pull type, but he can easy reach the cheap seats at any part of the yard with his leverage and loft.

Dude can mash. Period.

Gallo is a massive swing and miss guy.

And this is the crux of the concerns with Gallo – he’s a human ventilation machine.

Gallo was sharp to start the 2014 season as he cut his strikeout rate at Single-A. Then, things went horribly wrong. After striking out 64 times in 58 games he was moved to Double-A where he struck out 115 times in 68 games. So much for the perceived growth.

In 2015 he had a new approach as he struck out 49 times in 34 games at Double-A. Then things went horribly wrong. In 53 games at Triple-A he struck out 90 times. In 36 games with the Rangers he struck out 57 times.

In 2016 he once again had a “new” approach. At least it looked that way early on. However, over his last 12 minor league games he struck out 20 times with at least two whiffs in seven of those games.

Let’s further context his swing and miss ways by looking at his totals at all professional levels.

As you can see, as the competition has improved the strikeout numbers have gone up for Gallo.

I know it’s not actually fair to do this to Gallo, but I think it’s instructive to focus on his 38 games at the big league level. Do you realize what the above table says? Gallo has struck out 59 times in 113 at-bats with the Rangers, signified by the 52.2 percent number above. Plain language follows. Gallo has struck out in more than half his big league at-bats. I may never have seen a worse number in all my days.

There have only been seven seasons in history with 200 strikeouts at the big league level. The all-time record is 223 by Mark Reynolds in 2009. Note that Gallo’s big league pace would obliterate the record without flinching. Even in this day and age of the whiff 200 strikeouts is pathetic. Two hundred and sixty would be an abysmal failure.

Here are the batting averages for the men who struck out 199 times in a season.

That’s 12 seasons of 199 strikeouts.
There has been one season of .280.
There have been two seasons of .270.
There have been six seasons of .260.
That means there have been 12 seasons under .260.
In fact, the average number for those 12 seasons is - .247.
The league batting average right now is .255.  

Gallo is tall and has long arms. He also has a long swing. Those facts conspire to thwart his desire to hit the baseball with frequency. Until/unless he cuts his swing down, strikeouts will continue to be a massive issue. Yet to see his 23^rd birthday, it’s always possible he improves with age.

Even though he strikes out a lot, he takes a page out of the Adam Dunn handbook, another power hitting lefty with a huge frame, in that he’s more than willing to take a free pass. That trait makes Gallo way more attractive in an on-base percentage league than in a traditional 5x5 league that tracks batting average. As a career .204 hitter in the bigs he still owns a .297 OBP, a spread of nearly .100 points in the majors. As a minor leaguer the spread is even larger at .115 points (he’s hit .256 with a .371 OBP)

In the majors Gallo has a walk rate, BB/PA, of 11.7 percent. The mark in the minors is 14.9 percent. The league average this season is about 8.2 percent in 2016 so Gallo is way more likely to take a free pass than a league average performer.

PLAYING TIME

Gallo should play every day while he is up. Prince Fielder is done for the year and Mitch Moreland is really just a guy. Meanwhile, Jurickson Profar has hit .200 with a .297 OBP and .246 SLG the last 30 days. He’s simply stopped hitting. Profar has also hit .186 with a .508 SLG against lefties in 164 career plate appearances which is obviously pathetic. Gallo should play every day.

CONCLUSION

A best case scenario with Gallo is Chris Davis (the parallels are actually amazing. Huge power, tons of contact issues, came up with Rangers, played first/third but could also work in the outfielder). The worst case scenario is… utter failure like we saw last season. Most likely we will end up somewhere in the middle. Think Chris Carter/Mark Reynolds. Gallo qualifies in the outfield and in many set ups he will also qualify at first base which help. One would think that Gallo will get a chance to stick this time which means he should be added in just about every format out there. Realize what happened last season – the failures. Realize that he could once again fail. Realize who he actually is so if he bats .235 with 12 homers the rest of the way you aren’t ticked off. If you understand all of that… add Gallo everywhere.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).