Grade the Joey Gallo signing

[cHawk]

Today, the Twins and outfielder Joey Gallo agreed to a 1-year, $11M deal, per Jon Heyman of the NY Post. The Twins will likely look to Gallo in 2022 for…I’m honestly perplexed why the Twins signed him.

Joey Gallo is a corner OF, which is a position that the Twins have tons of depth already. Most of the Twins corner OF’s are LH hitters, but Gallo is a LH hitter as well, so adding him doesn’t solve that issue. He provides little to no defensive value, and he doesn’t improve the offense in any way at all. Below are some numbers that evidence this:

Joey Gallo:

Gallo’s main attribute is his ability to hit the ball hard when he hits it. His Whiff%, K%, and xBA are all terrible. In addition, his xwOBA is well below average. Judging by these stats, he’s essentially the same player as Miguel Sano.

Miguel Sano:

These numbers practically mirror each other. The only difference between Sano and Gallo is that Gallo is more expensive, and is an OF.

Who knows, Gallo could be good. He’s been good in the past. But right now I strongly dislike this signing.

[theBOMisthebomb]

F-.

Pathetic, deflating move to the fan base. I'm holding out hope this is part of a larger master plan. Flip Gallo, IKF style. 

[Greglw3]

1 hour ago, cHawk said:

Today, the Twins and outfielder Joey Gallo agreed to a 1-year, $11M deal, per Jon Heyman of the NY Post. The Twins will likely look to Gallo in 2022 for…I’m honestly perplexed why the Twins signed him.

Joey Gallo is a corner OF, which is a position that the Twins have tons of depth already. Most of the Twins corner OF’s are LH hitters, but Gallo is a LH hitter as well, so adding him doesn’t solve that issue. He provides little to no defensive value, and he doesn’t improve the offense in any way at all. Below are some numbers that evidence this:

Joey Gallo:

Gallo’s main attribute is his ability to hit the ball hard when he hits it. His Whiff%, K%, and xBA are all terrible. In addition, his xwOBA is well below average. Judging by these stats, he’s essentially the same player as Miguel Sano.

Miguel Sano:

These numbers practically mirror each other.

 

Who knows, Gallo could be good. He’s been good in the past. But right now I strongly dislike this signing.

"The only difference between Sano and Gallo is that Gallo is more expensive, and is an OF."

Gallo has little to no defensive value? Gallo has won two gold gloves, Sano never won one.

Sano never walked 111 times in a season as Gallo did in 2021 (Sano’s highest was 59).

Gallo had a .351 OBP in 2021 and 38 HR and an .808 OPS. Sano never hit 40 HR, which Gallo has done twice.

Gallo currently has a 20 consecutive steal streak going, Sano 5/8 for his career. Gallo had a 138 OPS+ for Texas in 2021 and a total of 121 OPS.

Don’t know what happened to him last year but he has a track record that says maybe last year was a fluke.

All that said, I was perplexed by the signing too, until I did a little more of a deep dive and found all of the above. Maybe he’ll be the next IKF? 

The best signing of the day was by the White Sox getting Binentendi. And he wasn’t that expensive. Why the Twins didn’t sign him I’m befuddled by.

I’m still guardedly optimistic about what they’ll do in trades.

[Mike Sixel]

29 minutes ago, Greglw3 said:

"The only difference between Sano and Gallo is that Gallo is more expensive, and is an OF."

Gallo has little to no defensive value? Gallo has won two gold gloves, Sano never won one.

Sano never walked 111 times in a season as Gallo did in 2021 (Sano’s highest was 59).

Gallo had a .351 OBP in 2021 and 38 HR and an .808 OPS. Sano never hit 40 HR, which Gallo has done twice.

Gallo currently has a 20 consecutive steal streak going, Sano 5/8 for his career. Gallo had a 138 OPS+ for Texas in 2021 and a total of 121 OPS.

Don’t know what happened to him last year but he has a track record that says maybe last year was a fluke.

All that said, I was perplexed by the signing too, until I did a little more of a deep dive and found all of the above. Maybe he’ll be the next IKF? 

The best signing of the day was by the White Sox getting Binentendi. And he wasn’t that expensive. Why the Twins didn’t sign him I’m befuddled by.

I’m still guardedly optimistic about what they’ll do in trades.

He was awful three years ago. Maybe two years ago was the aberration? I guess we'll find out. 

You want them to trade more prospects? How will they have a sustainable team if they have no prospects?

[DocBauer]

Absolutely a F-ing F!

I don't buy for more than a nano-second the "he can play defense and hit bombs WHEN he makes contact" arguement. Larnach, AK, Wallner haven't proven themselves yet? OK, SOUNDS like a good arguement. But they can't do so unless given the chance. And even a mediocre Kepler provides same defense, or better, and base running, etc, with a better AVG, etc. A cheaper and maybe poorer Kepler is as good.

How about we keep Kepler instead and get him to just hit the damn ball harder? 

OR, we sign what we need, which is a RH BAT to add to the lineup  for the same $, and trust in our top OF talent to be healthy and producing instead of some retread?

This is so ridiculous I can't even find words other than "huh" and "WTF".

Fireball offense for stupidity?

[Nashvilletwin]

I have a deep enough affection for the Twins that I’m much more interested in doing what is best for developing a multi year window of true pennant contending opportunity than I am in this FO trying to kick save the last year of Gray, Mahle and Maeda after failing miserably on Correa, et al. Joey Gallo’s one season stop in Minnesota (if he even lasts that long) would appear to possibly delay the former while being a risky, desperate example of the latter.

The tenure of The Nephew is off to a rocky start. It’s baseball, so one never knows. But I’ve got the under on 1.5MM attendance in ‘23 if Kyle Farmer is our everyday SS and Mr. Buck Sixty Joey Gallo is our starting RF. I’m what they call in the business a “super fan” and at this point even I have no interest in making watching the current projected lineup a daily priority. 

[weitz41]

There is not a low enough letter to grade this...

$11 mil for 79 OPS+ last season..

$500K 80 OPS+ last season...Gilberto Celestino. Money well spent in comparison.

Now 1/3 of our roster or 1/2 of our position players are LH corner outfielder...

[wsnydes]

Not thrilled by the move.  I don't really get it.  If he were a RH bat, I'd be happier with the deal, yet still not thrilled.

My concern is that the FO feels that this is the impact bat they need.  He probably will be at times, and I imagine he'll hit around the middle of the order, but he's not the guy to fill that impact bat need.

[Roaddog]

I don't get this. Even if we trade an outfielder, it still makes no sense

[Major League Ready]

Ask me in September.  If he does exactly what he did last year it's an F.  However, this is a guy that has played at an elite level.  He had a 986 OPS for 2019.  He had a 638 OPS last year.  Kepler was 666.  It's not hard to imagine Gallo having the better offensive season than Max in 2023 and Gallo's positional flexibility (especially CF) has real value.  If he bounces back even modestly and they get real value back for Kepler, this deal has the potential to look very different in September so I will reserve judgement for the time being.

[CRF]

I would have voted for "Z", but the scale only went to "F". This move makes absolutely no sense. I thought it was a RandBalls Stu satire article, when I first saw it. Hell...let's bring back Sano while we're at it, and see if they can set a teammate record for strike outs. 

[ChermesZ]

Since we are grading this, I’ll take a teachers perspective.

 

it looks like something that was done with procrastination and last minute desperation.  The FO seems to be hoping something comes out of this deal…much like a student hopes for a good grade on something that isn’t quite up to par.

 

in short, this would warrant a bad grade or a redo….the quality of impact is minor and the perception of this is easy to read:  sloppy and desperate.

[chpettit19]

If you hope Kepler is going to get a natural boost to his production due to the new rules and is thus worth keeping you should be happy (not thrilled or ecstatic, but happy) about this deal. Kepler's problem is he doesn't hit the ball hard enough so he hits a lot of weak grounders to the right side, or pop ups to the outfield. That isn't Gallo's problem. Gallo will get just as many extra hits this season as Kepler because of the new shift rules. Even with the extra Ks. Because when he hits it it actually has enough velocity to get through the larger holes now.

I gave this a C. It's not earth shattering, or team changing. Unless he's 2019 or 2021 Gallo. Then he's the 2nd best player on the team. I'd guess he's somewhere between 2021 Gallo and 2022 Gallo. 2+ wins seems like a reasonable guess on him. The struggle, and why he elicits such strong responses, is that he's such a polar player. His highs are better than any highs on the roster outside Buxton. But his lows are worse than any lows on the roster outside Pagan.

I'm someone who throws out 2020 stats because it was too random, and too short, of a season. So the last 3 seasons to me are 2019, 2021, and 2022. Gallo went 3.2, 4.2, 0.6 in fWAR those years. 144, 122, 85 in wRC+. Kepler went 3.8, 2.3, 2.0 fWAR. 122, 97, 95 in wRC+. Both are elite defenders (Gallo has 2 gold gloves if that matters to you). So, to me, Gallo is just a different version of Kepler. Different flaws in the bat (Ks for Gallo, weak contact for Kepler). He's not an exciting signing, but if you can get anything of value for Kepler (who I think most of us already assumed they were going to trade) you've made the organization better overall since replacing Kepler with Gallo is pretty much a wash and you added value for Kepler. Thus it's a C signing to me.

[rwilfong86]

F. He doesn't fit any sort of need and doesn't produce more than their current roster. Absolutely an F. 

[Irishman]

I rate this signing 'F'.

[Dman]

After looking into it more I gave this one a C.  I get that he appears to be a fairly equal stand in if they trade Kepler.  If he does rebound, and that is a big if, then my grade is likely too low.  Also if they get something that helps the team by dealing Kepler that changes the perception of this trade some.  With Gallo they have a vet bat to Bridge the kids (Larnach, Kirilloff, Wallner) and make sure they can play at the MLB level.  That is if we are not getting last years Joey Gallo. 

Still this move would have looked better if they had found a right handed bat for right field as we have none right now.  The closest one in the system if he keeps things going would be Urbina who starts at High A next year.

In a vacuum I hate this deal but I do want to wait and see how everything falls into place before going too negative on this one.  All in all it just wasn't a deal I was looking for the Twins to make as I don't see how it really makes the team that much better.  If what they get with Kepler or package with Kepler makes a big difference I look at this differently.  Still wish he was a right handed bat.

[Nashvilletwin]

12 minutes ago, Dman said:

If what they get with Kepler or package with Kepler makes a big difference I look at this differently

1. Several of us are assuming we are moving Kepler. Seems logical.   But let’s make sure that happens. What if the FO moves Lanarch or Wallner? Who knows what they will do.

2. Even so, many of us were assuming Kepler was going to get moved anyway. This would bring something in return (SP or RP most likely) while unclogging the left handed corner OF glut and give valuable ABs and innings to a up and comer. Now we still have the issue.

3. Want to wait until September? What difference does it make if he has a decent season or is a bust? Twins don’t compete (let’s be real here, ok), Gallo leaves anyway, and Wallner, Larnach, Gordon (who is playing better than anyone mentioned in this post), Kiriloff and Martin lose development time.  Also, let’s even wait until September to see who has a better year between Gallo and Kepler (as pathetic as Kepler has been at the plate it’s far from a no brainer that Gallo will have a better season than Kepler).

[Nashvilletwin]

I’ve often wondered if the FO and ownership reads the DN,  Now I know for sure that they do: only one of them would give this a “B”.  Lol 

[TopGunn#22]

I would grade this signing "perplexing."  I was expecting a Wil Myers signing.  That would have made more sense.  This certainly means a LH hitting OF'er is being traded.  My guess, in order for this to truly have a benefit to the Twins is Larnach, Arraez and something else to Miami for Pablo Lopez.  Anything short of dealing for a #1 for our rotation will fall short of accomplishing what I guess the FO is trying for.  But for now, I'm scratching my head.

[Mike h]

So Gallo at his best hit 38 HR. Kepler once hit 36. Both have declined since, Gallo more so, in terms of BA and K's.  Could we say both of them are has-beens? Never to regain their form? No, not yet, but Gallo is teetering on the edge of falling out of MLB unless he makes a good comeback. Considering his lifetime BA is .199, how far could we realistically expect him to come back?  Come on, his entire career has averaged below the Mendoza Line.

If any of our minor league players had his stats and profile ( a 199 hitter but with power, average speed and good glove) he wouldn't even get an invite to spring training.  We already have rookies who profile better than that. 

For those who are concerned about rookie defense, read Tony Olivia's autobiography.  He went from not making the team because of poor defense (in spite of a fantastic offensive audition) to gold glove winner.  And batting champion. And Hall of Famer. And it almost didn't happen because he couldn't play defense.  He worked his tail off to get better and he should be an inspiration to any rookie needing to overcome deficiencies.

[rv78]

Z-

Not only is it bad it appears the FO is asleep at the wheel.

[Dman]

5 minutes ago, Nashvilletwin said:

 

2. Even so, many of us were assuming Kepler was going to get moved anyway. This would bring something in return (SP or RP most likely) while unclogging the left handed corner OF glut and give valuable ABs and innings to a up and comer. Now we still have the issue.

 

This is a good point. You definitely could argue they could have traded Kepler and been in better shape by getting something for one of their left handed outfielders and not even Signing Gallo.  There are too many outfielders on the 40 man as it is.  Adding another doesn't make much sense unless of course they have trades in place that involve more outfielder's than just Kepler.  

I am all for knowing what we have in Larnach and Kirilloff but the fact they Haven't been healthy even close to a full season makes it hard to trust they can\will make it.  With Kirilloffs wrist issues he might never make it. Wallner's D in right is a definite step down from Kepler so I can see why the FO might have wanted something a little more solid there at least to start the season.  Still in a vacuum I think you make a good point.

[Mike h]

If other teams are interested in getting Kepler, and he and Gallo are basically the same player, why didn't they just sign Gallo?  Kepler's contract  is only $2.5m less which is virtually no difference. And it wouldn't have cost them the SP or any other player the Twins would want.  So my conclusion is, there is no real interest in Kepler; he has hardly any trade value, the Twins will simply give him away in a package with our more valuable players. I'd rather keep him.

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

Both Twins FA targets this year were players traded at the deadline, hence no draft pick to forfeit.  I wonder if that guided the Twins towards these signings more than other factors like talent and cost.  I like the Vazquez signing but think they could have done better here with a Wil Meyers or other RH OF signing.

[Nine of twelve]

Get back to me in 12 months and I'll let you know.

[Reptevia]

It’s a flyer. If he turns into good Joey Gallo and we’re competitive, he helps. If we’re not competitive, we flip him at trade deadline. If he’s bad Joey Gallo we’re out $11M-oh well. Small market teams should have one flyer like this every year. 

[tony&rodney]

The Twins went into the offseason needing a shortstop, a RH OF bat, a catcher, a top starting pitcher, and a reliever.

My guess is that Falvey looks at Farmer (SS), Garlick (RH OF bat), and Vasquez (C) to cover three needs. Now Falvey wants to trade for the other two. Joey Gallo? Can he be the reliever?

[TwinsDr2021]

33 minutes ago, Mike h said:

If other teams are interested in getting Kepler, and he and Gallo are basically the same player, why didn't they just sign Gallo?  Kepler's contract  is only $2.5m less which is virtually no difference. And it wouldn't have cost them the SP or any other player the Twins would want.  So my conclusion is, there is no real interest in Kepler; he has hardly any trade value, the Twins will simply give him away in a package with our more valuable players. I'd rather keep him.

This is exactly what I was thinking, way would a team want an inferior player (if you think Gallo is better than Kepler) and have to pay prospect capital for it? It makes no sense, so I am thinking it will be somebody else that is traded (Larnach or Arraez). Gallo could play 1B, DH, RF and CF. I really don't know because I don't get this signing at all.

[Nashvilletwin]

4 minutes ago, Reptevia said:

It’s a flyer. If he turns into good Joey Gallo and we’re competitive, he helps. If we’re not competitive, we flip him at trade deadline. If he’s bad Joey Gallo we’re out $11M-oh well. Small market teams should have one flyer like this every year. 

Fair enough take. That’s exactly the FO’s thinking and why it’s basically a Hail Mary to take advantage of one year of Gray, Mahle and Maeda.  Let’s hope it works (I’ve got the under though). The only caveat is there is also opportunity cost of the third option if we keep him all year (which I think is the least likely scenario if we are not competitive). 

[USAFChief]

F. Only because that's the lowest option. 

 

Why? How does this help IN ANY WAY??

 

The only thing this accomplished was moving Falvey farther along in his annual wasting of  whatever salary is available for FAs.