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First and foremost, time has passed since the Twins opted to trade Gio Urshela to the Angels. When they made that move, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine were squarely focused on their pursuit of Carlos Correa. While they ultimately fell short as he went to the San Francisco Giants, $9 million for a guy that didn’t project to be in the starting lineup seems substantial.
From there, we can also presume that the Minnesota Twins do, in fact, intend to have Joey Gallo start most of their games in 2023. With Urshela vacating third base, talented youngster Jose Miranda will be expected to take most of the hot corner reps. He performed below average defensively last year at first, and Minnesota has maintained that third base is still his long term home.
That means Gallo will find most of his starts on the corners for the Twins. His most traditional position has been in right field. As much as Gallo is known as a slugger, he also is a plus defender with a big arm. Rocco Baldelli’s lineup currently has Max Kepler penciled into the right field spot, but it has been consistently reported that the longtime fixture has drawn plenty of trade interest. Although Kepler wouldn’t net a ton for Minnesota, moving him has seemed like the plan all offseason.
In doing so, Gallo would draw most of his starts in right field. That would keep Trevor Larnach and Alex Kirilloff as the main left fielders, while also allowing Kirilloff to rotate at first base with Luis Arraez. Gallo has played first in his career previously as well, and certainly can take at-bats as a designated hitter for Minnesota. In the same vein of his contract, Gallo compares to the White Sox Andrew Benintendi and the San Francisco Giants Mitch Haniger. He may have a bit more upside than both, however, and a return to 2021 form would do the trick.
One would think it easy to assume that Gallo benefits from the shift being banned in 2023. That’s probably a fair assessment given that he’s been outspoken against it personally, and we started to see four man outfields in large part due to his batted ball profile. Eno Sarris wrote a great piece for The Athletic back in September, and Gallo (alongside Kepler) was among the names touched on.
In the piece, MLB writer Mike Petriello notes that while Gallo may not see the same shift, he’ll almost certainly still be defended differently. For a considerable rise in batting average, he’d need to drive the ball the other way, and that would be counterproductive to his batted ball profile. Gallo stands to benefit from a strong hard hit rate, and while things may rise slightly for him, his 121 OPS+ despite a .199 batting average in 2021 suggests success even in a non-traditional way.
Ultimately there’s a few things Minnesota likely sees in Gallo that made him a worthy acquisition. First and foremost, they now have money to spend. That wasn’t the case (at least not in the straightforward sense) when dealing Urshela, and Gallo is certainly going to start. Minnesota may still very well be operating with a plan to trade Kepler, and that opens up even more opportunity. Then there’s the positional flexibility, Gallo can play all three outfield spots, and that helps to create a more fluid lineup as well.
There’s no denying that Gallo was a train wreck in New York last season. He isn’t just a rehashing of Chris Carter or Miguel Sano however. Minnesota is looking at an opportunity to benefit on a bounce back, and even if he doesn’t offensively, there’s arguably little downside out in the field.
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