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Joey Gallo shocked many Texas Rangers fans this season when he stepped onto the major league field for the first time and was able to record four RBIs while hitting 3-for-4. He was pulled up due to an injury after only moving up to Triple-A this year. Gallo was picked No. 39 overall in 2012 as the Rangers’ first-round pick, and he was estimated to be putting on a Rangers jersey in 2016.
As fate will sometimes have it, the Rangers struggled early this season with injuries and slumps, Adrian Beltre being one of them. Because of his thumb injury, Gallo was called up to the big leagues a year earlier than expected, but did doing so actually set him back in his progress? Gallo is without a doubt a power hitter. He has mad skills and showed them with his success when he was called up. However, he ended the season with a .204 batting average in the majors, striking out 57 times in only 36 games.
Gallo has one of the largest strikeout to home run margins, and the Rangers’ need to bring up this top prospect early may have caused him to skip some steps in his training that he would have received in Triple-A. This experience can have a positive impact on a player by showing them what they need to work on when they head back down, or it can really shake their confidence.
On top of Gallo’s need to lower his strikeout numbers, he is also an addition of yet another lefty to the Texas lineup. These lefties all struggled with hitting against left-handed pitchers for a good chunk of the season. With Mitch Moreland, Prince Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo as the other lefty hitters, the Rangers have a lot to think about this offseason in terms of finding good power hitters to even out this lineup.
All of these aspects are going to have an impact on the Rangers’ decision on what to do with Gallo. On one hand, he is a good power hitter to have in the back pocket when he can perform, but the Rangers may find that allowing him to develop more in the minors next year will yield better results in the future.
