The Yankees knew what they were getting when they acquired Joey Gallo at the trade deadline—a powerfully-built slugger with herculean strength, but certainly of the feast or famine variety with a maddening propensity for stranding runners. Gallo was seen as a worthy gamble, providing left-handed power for a team in desperate need of a spark. A surprisingly capable fielder for his size (6’5”/235), Gallo also represented a defensive upgrade for the Yankees, who, at the time, had been slumming it with liabilities Miguel Andujar and Clint Frazier in left field.
But a little over two months into his New York tenure, Gallo has not been nearly the difference-maker Yankees fans were promised, hitting .160 with an anemic 63.3-percent contact rate and a league-worst 88 strikeouts since debuting with the Bombers on July 30th. The slumping 27-year-old has sprinkled in the occasional home run—13 in 228 plate appearances—but has largely underwhelmed, particularly with runners in scoring position (4-for-41 with 24 strikeouts).
Gallo, who is headed into the final year of his contract (he’ll be arbitration-eligible one last time this winter), had a chance to flip the script in Tuesday night’s AL Wild Card Game, hitting cleanup against the hated Red Sox at Fenway Park. But Gallo’s redemption arc was not to be, laboring to an 0-for-4 night with a strikeout and two runners left on base. To Gallo’s credit, his 370-foot fly out in the ninth inning would have been a home run in all but five major-league parks. Unfortunately, 109-year-old Fenway with its unusual outfield dimensions happened to be one of the five.
The Yankees are a team that lives and dies by the home run and Gallo, who went yard 38 times in 498 at-bats during the regular season (albeit with 213 strikeouts, good for fifth-most in MLB history), certainly aligns with that philosophy. But is he deserving of a long-term deal, and if not, would New York consider moving him, either this offseason or at next summer’s trade deadline? GM Brian Cashman will have a number of tough decisions to make this winter (most pressing being whether to retain manager Aaron Boone, whose contract is up) and addressing Gallo's future is one of them.
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