September is here, and with it comes pennant-chase baseball and prospect call-ups. Not many prospects are gifted with the opportunity to immediately step in and take on a prominent role with a team competing for the postseason, so we’ve highlighted one player with the best opportunity to do that: Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers.
Gallo was already called up earlier this season and turned in a mostly mediocre performance. Regarded as one of the top prospects in all of baseball because of his otherworldly power, Gallo also features an otherworldly strikeout rate.
During his first tenure with the Rangers, Gallo mostly filled in for injured third baseman Adrian Beltre and injured left fielder Josh Hamilton. Gallo provided some pop, homering in each of his first two games, but was sent to Triple-A when the roster got healthy.
Gallo was up for almost the entire month of June, giving us a decent enough time to dissect what he did at the big league level.
The numbers aren’t particularly good: just two games with multiple hits, five home runs, a .218 batting average and 43 strikeouts in just 87 at-bats.
So why is Gallo a player who could make a difference? Here are a couple of reasons.
Firstly, we already mentioned his enormous potential.
According to MLB Pipeline, which ranks and discusses prospects, Gallo is the sixth-best prospect in baseball. He’s ranked so highly because on the 20-80 scouting scale, Gallo’s power rates as an 80.
But he has other discernible skills as well.
While Gallo’s fielding rates as a below-average 40, his arm is a 70, making him a decent option, or at least not a liability, at the hot corner defensively. He’s certainly not going to win any Gold Gloves, but he can handle his own.
At the plate, we’ve seen Gallo’s tremendous raw power on display, and we’ve seen his horrible plate-discipline as well.
Taking away the power rating of 80, Gallo’s overall hit tool rates as a 45, which is slightly below average to average.
A player with Gallo’s potential can always be a possible difference-maker if he has one thing: opportunity.
That’s the second reason why Gallo could make an impact on the Rangers’ playoff chances. To put that into name form, Josh Hamilton.
Hamilton is one of the more injury-prone players in baseball, and Gallo has already been featured in left field to spell Hamilton earlier this season. Even if Hamilton were to remain healthy, Gallo’s ability to play corner infield and outfield, as well as the chance to have his power as a pinch hitter, could make him at least a valuable bench player.
All it takes is a hot streak, and in the minors at least, Gallo has shown the ability to mash, hitting 127 home runs in just 383 games.
Gallo’s power certainly makes him an interesting potential threat. He tends to either strike out or homer, two of the most exciting plays in baseball, so at the very least, he could be fun to watch.
All stats and info are courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted.
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