The Rangers announced this afternoon that they’ve recalled top infield prospect Joey Gallo from Triple-A Round Rock and optioned outfielder Jared Hoying back to Triple-A in his place. Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported shortly before the announcement that Gallo was being recalled (Twitter link).
Gallo, 22, made his big league debut with the Rangers last season but struggled in the Majors, posting a .204/.301/.417 batting line. Strikeouts have long been an Achilles heel for Gallo, and that proved especially true in last season’s brief MLB tenure, as he whiffed an astounding 57 times in 123 plate appearances. Gallo, though, receives 80 grades for his power (on the 20-80 scouting scale) and did homer six times while drawing 15 walks in that stretch as well. This year, he’s dropped his strikeout rate at the Triple-A level by nearly 10 percent. Granted, that still means that he’s punched out in just over 30 percent of his trips to the plate, but it’s a notable step up from the 39.6 percent rate at which he whiffed in 2015 while playing at Triple-A.
This season, Gallo is hitting .246/.381/.557 with 19 homers, nine doubles and five triples in 299 plate appearances with Round Rock — once again displaying a penchant for drawing free passes but also some struggles in making contact. With Prince Fielder expected to undergo season-ending neck surgery later this week, there’s an opportunity for Gallo to get some at-bats while spending time at DH and at both corner infield spots. That could lead to fairly regular at-bats for Gallo, who could slide into the everyday lineup as Texas’ everyday first baseman next season if he proves capable of handling big league pitching this time around. Mitch Moreland is a free agent at season’s end, and while Gallo has cut his teeth playing third base in the minors, the Rangers won’t have a vacancy there until 2019 after signing Adrian Beltre to a two-year extension earlier this season. Gallo’s name has also popped up in myriad trade rumors over the past several weeks, and while most reports indicate that the Rangers are loath to part with his power upside, a couple of reports have suggested that the team is more willing to part with him than it has publicly let on.
Well looks like Gallo gets another chance to prove that he is capable of playing in the big leagues. Will he whiff 40% of the time in the big leagues and struggle (driving down his value in the process) or will he exceed expectations and hit for a decent average while hitting tape measure shots?
Only time is going to tell. My bet is he disappoints, but then I’ve been wrong before and fully expect to be wrong in the future.
You basically said nothing
@MGC1987 – I think they said a lot. They offered two scenarios and picked one.
I also think he will disappoint. His minor league numbers scream that he needs more seasoning
Even if he doesnt contribute much, he cant be any worse than Fielder and that sorry sack mitch moreland
Moreland’s been fine. He’s seen an offensive uptick ever since his downturn in May.
I disagree, he can be worse
Teams wanna see the goods. If he’s real or not but who knows Harper and Bryant have turned out okay maybe there’s something up there in LV.
I live in LV. All we have is heat haha
Lol
Heat, casinos, and the legendary big payouts…
If you can’t hit at Round Rock you can’t hit at all. Sure, a guy with his raw power will run into one every now and then at AAA. People compare this guy to Rizzo but Rizzo hit for Average and Power in the minor leagues. This guy is certainly not a “untouchable” for me and there’s a chance he could be overrated. Having 8 raw power during batting practice at 5:30 is one thing, what matters is when the game starts at 7:10. Anyone remember how big a prospect Matt Dominguez was??
Yes…… Yes I do. Gallo is overrated he might do ok in NL but I just don’t see anything special about him @ not again , you are dead on with the Dominguez analogy also jason lane , richard hidalgo come to mind as well.
The NL would surely help because he plays average defense at 3rd and throws mid 90s from the mound. Sure he’s basically ortiz or Edgar Martinez at 22. You know the NL helps pitchers, not hitters perfectly capable of playing 3-4 positions right?
5:30 power? The guy has 146 home runs in 452 MILB games. That’s 52+ per 162 games played.
Yep, hitting at the AAA level equates success at the MLB level, which is why Jose Bautista can’t hit more than 15 HRs in a season… oh wait. Or how about how Chris Davis was an instant success?? oh, it took him 4 years to figure out MLB pitching.
And just to show how out of touch you are, no one compares Gallo to Rizzo, nobody. The correct comparison is Adam Dunn, and always has been.
Matt Dominguez?? Boy are you really out of touch, let me remind you of the greatness of Matt Dominguez and you can tell me how you’d remotely compare him to Gallo. Dominguez was only once ranked as a top 50 prospect, and only by Baseball Prospectus. He only had 1 minor league season where he OPS’d over .850, and never again reached .750 (100 points lower, and averaged .728 in the minors)
Gallo only has 2 stints where he OPS’d less than .850; a 16 game stint in Low-A his first year, and last year in AAA, but even then for the year, he’s never OPS’d less than .850. Also Gallo has been ranked as a top 10 prospect for 2 consecutive years by pretty much everybody. And finally, Dominguez hit 89 HRs in nearly 3300 trips to the plate in the minors… Gallo almost does that in 2 years.
MLB.com ranked Dominguez as a top 50 prospect, as well. Either you made things up or didn’t look very hard.
so they did, isn’t listed on his Baseball-Reference page, which is kinda hard for someone to make up, but either way, MLB.com hasn’t take ranking prospects nearly as seriously as Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, and even then, Dominguez was never a top 10 prospect, and everything else I typed was accurate, or are you going to accuse me of making up stats as well. I’m sorry that you think I should spend hours and hours to research everything before posted. Clearly, you bothered to find one spec of evidence to prove my findings false and accused me of making things up instead of checking their stat pages to see I didn’t just pull OPS numbers out of thin air.
Pedro Alvarez
TherEs never been a rizzo comp written by anyone who follows baseball. Probably by anyone. He’s on the Branyan-Dunn spectrum with the potential for average defense at 3rd. Maybe overrated sure. 80 grade power is more from extensive minor league track record and upper tanks in Texas and taking Kershaw 20 rows deep in la. Game power is maybe top 5 in baseball. But yes there’s bust potential with the contact
I’m wondering why you think he is a comparable prospect to Matt Dominguez… Dominguez never popped 40 homers in a minor league season before. Gallo’s power is legit BP or game but I agree he isn’t a sure thing. He is still developing as a player though and I don’t think he is ready for the majors yet. Doesn’t mean he won’t be a great major league player in the future
Joe Borchard Hit a 500 foot Home Run onto the concourse at the Cell lol ….. He comes to mind
@ganmaraze you sound strangely like an astros fan with all the matt dominguez talk and clear gallo hate. he’s only 22 and needs to develop. i don’t see any reason why he can’t mature into a chris davis. i’m watching the game now and you can tell he’s super nervous this game. kid is dealing with tons of pressure.
“Clear Gallo hate” ??
Did you bother reading anything or just gloss over it all? I’m a Rangers fan and was schooling some noob on how Dominguez isn’t even remotely comparable to Gallo. Gallo is a clear top 10 prospect, and Dominguez was a fringe top 50. Go read the stats i provided and get back to me on how I was hating on Gallo and praising Dominguez.
TherEs never been a rizzo comp written by anyone who follows baseball. Probably by anyone. He’s on the Branyan-Dunn spectrum with the potential for average defense at 3rd. Maybe overrated sure. 80 grade power is more from extensive minor league track record and upper tanks in Texas and taking Kershaw 20 rows deep in la. Game power is maybe top 5 in baseball. But yes there’s bust potential with the contact.
Keep Gallo to play DH this year and 1B next. The money you save by not signing Moreland can be used for a pitcher like Cashner or Volquez next year. Trade Profar and others for Chris Archer.
Profar is not enough to headline a potential Archer deal. I’m not sure Gallo is either, but maybe both of them together could.
Sure enough he hits a homer tonight.
Yep, he also struck out twice, and made an error.. In an EXTREMELY small sample size he has been everything expected.: low average (1 for 5), poor defense (1 error in 2 games), lots of strikeouts (2 in 5 plate appearances). The potential for big success or disappointing failure is definitely with Gallo. It doesn’t look like there will be much middle ground. I guess that is one of the things that makes so many want to watch him play.
Despite the fact that I personally think he will disappoint overall as a player, I am interested in seeing how he progresses the rest of the season.
“While Gallo has cut his teeth playing third base in the minors, the Rangers won’t have a vacancy there until 2019 after signing Adrian Beltre to a two-year extension earlier this season.”
Trade Beltre. Keep Gallo. That is always a possibility too (even if less likely).
Do you hate Ranger baseball? There’s no room for that kind of language here, sir. Lol