Over the past decade, Major League Baseball has moved toward a three-true-outcomes style of play. This year, for example, home runs, strikeouts, and walks have combined to account for roughly 36% of all plate appearances. No player exemplifies this trend better than Texas Rangers slugger Joey Gallo.
Gallo’s swings frequently come up empty. He has struck out in 36.6% of his plate appearances over his career and couples that with a 17.8% swinging strike rate. However, he makes up for that by refusing to chase pitches outside of the strike zone, posting a 14.9% walk rate. The right fielder may take huge swings, but he does not wildly flail at everything he sees. Those big swings enable Gallo to absolutely murder the baseball when he does make contact, frequently ranking him in the top 1% each year in average exit velocity (EV), max EV, and barrel percentage. And, with a .549 xwOBAcon across his 7 seasons in the big leagues, Gallo is able to overcome swing and miss tendencies that would be a death sentence for most hitters by doing extreme damage when he does put the ball in play. That, along with the walks, is how he has posted a solid 117 wRC+ over his career despite just a .213 batting average.
This season, however, Gallo has unlocked the best version of himself. He has slammed 23 home runs and is boasting a 150 wRC+. Combined with his criminally underrated defense in right field, he has provided the Rangers with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement, according to FanGraphs. That makes him the 10th-most valuable position player in the sport in 2021. The 27-year-old has been rewarded for his excellent season with his second All-Star Game selection. Gallo did post a similarly excellent 146 wRC+ in an injury-shortened 2019 season (his other All-Star campaign), but we should consider this year as his true breakout. Why is this season different?
Plate Discipline
While he still ranks near the bottom of the league when it comes to making consistent contact, Gallo has significantly reduced his swing-and-miss tendencies this year. His 31.3% strikeout rate and 14.7% swinging strike rate are both the lowest of his career. In 2019, Gallo went down on strikes a career-worst 38.4% of the time. The reduced strikeouts have allowed Gallo to succeed despite having his lowest single-season barrel rate and hard hit rate as an everyday player. Make no mistake, Gallo remains elite in these categories, but they are down a tick for his lofty standards. If it coincides with fewer strikeouts, it may better position him for long-term success.
Gallo’s already-elite walk rate has continued to rise. He is taking a base on balls 19.6% of the time, which leads all qualified hitters. This has enabled him to post a fantastic .395 on-base percentage. He may still have one of the worst strikeout rates in the league, even after improving upon it, but Gallo’s frequent walks have produced a top-30 walk-to-strikeout ratio.
Multiple Ways to Beat the Shift
Most modern sluggers have the most power to their pull side and are encouraged to hit the ball that way. As he does with many other things, Gallo has historically done that to the extreme. He has a career 48.1% pull rate. Opponents know this, and as such, they deploy a shift against him for about 95% of his plate appearances. These alignments typically feature the second baseman playing in short right field and the shortstop just to the right of second base. The third baseman starts to the left of second base, or he may occasionally play in on the left side of the infield to guard against a rare attempt by Gallo to go the other way.
This season, the extreme shifting has failed to contain Gallo. That’s because he has slashed his pull rate to 41.8%, which is just barely over the league-average mark. While Gallo remains primarily a pull hitter, 33.9% of his batted balls in 2021 have been to the middle of the field, which is the highest rate of his career. In particular, Gallo is serving more balls into left-center. He is also hitting more long balls to the opposite field. To get a better idea of what that looks like, below are spray charts of Gallo’s hits from 2019 and his hits from 2021.
Because he often hits the ball over the infield anyway, Gallo’s numbers when the shift is on have never been awful. This season, however, his modified approach has done away with any of the shift’s effectiveness. He boasts a pristine .392 wOBA when the shift is on in 2021. Hitting the ball over 400 feet remains Gallo’s primary strategy for beating the shift, but he has added the ability to use another part of the field to his toolbox.
Joey Gallo remains the most extreme three-true-outcome hitter in the sport. However, he has made some changes to his approach that are fueling a legitimate breakout season. Gallo is no longer an extreme pull hitter. Instead, he has demonstrated an improved ability to use all fields without sacrificing his jaw-dropping power. His plate discipline is the best it has ever been. Gallo’s stellar 2019 season was largely driven by an abnormally-high .368 BABIP. This year, his BABIP is a far more realistic .296.
The star outfielder remains a baseball unicorn, but this version of the slugger is achieving more sustainable success. It is time for Joey Gallo to receive the widespread recognition he deserves as an elite player.
Photo by John McCoy/Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Aaron Polcare