Joey Gallo says the Minnesota Twins are more his ‘vibe’ after shaky Yankees tenure
It’s no secret that current Minnesota Twins outfielder Joey Gallo had a rough 2022 season, especially when he was with the New York Yankees. Perhaps the word “rough” is a considerable understatement.
New York acquired Gallo ahead of the 2021 deadline from the Texas Rangers. The then-27-year-old was slashing .223/.379.490 (.869 OPS) with 25 home runs, 55 RBIs and seven additional extra-base hits in the 95 games before the trade. His 58-game New York tenure wasn’t as ceremonious, beginning two for his first 27 and ultimately slashed .160/.303/.404 (.707 OPS) with 13 home runs and 22 RBIs.
It was just as rocky in 2022; in 82 games, he hit just .159 with a .621 OPS, hitting 12 home runs with 24 RBIs and striking out on 38.8 percent of his 273 plate appearances. It took a toll on Gallo mentally, and understandably so. New York sports fans aren’t the easiest to handle, especially if you’re struggling mightily.
Gallo was traded to the Dodgers at last year’s deadline, where he hit just .162/.277/.393 (.671) with seven home runs and 23 RBIs. Though there wasn’t as much pressure to produce in LA as there was in New York. Gallo hit free agnecy this offseason, where he signed a one-year, $11 million prove-it deal with the Minnesota Twins in December.
He recently opened up about his struggles in New York and how the media markets he’s played in elsewhere are practically polar opposites.
“The Minnesota market is different than the New York market. The Texas market is different than the New York market,” Gallo told Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. “I always just wanted to play baseball, have fun, hang out with the boys. That’s my goal, just to play baseball and win games. I don’t really like it being more than that.
“I guess this is more my vibe, you know what I mean?”
Gallo’s a two-time All-Star, including in 2021 ahead of the trade to New York for Josh Smith, Ezequiel Duran, Trevor Hauver and Glen Otto — four of New York’s top-30 prospects (per MLB Pipeline) at the time. He wasn’t spectacular at the dish, but won two gold gloves in left field — including one in 2021 — as an everyday player, still giving it his all despite the mental hurdles he had to overcome.
“I took pride in the fact that I still played. I was still diving for the Yankees, running into walls for the Yankees, running hard for the Yankees,” he said. “I knew I was getting traded. But I still had the pride, the integrity for the game, the respect for the fans, respect for the organization. I’m still going to go out here and bust my ass. I’m not going to just cash it in.
“I think every baseball player at some point is like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this s— anymore. It’s a tough game.”
Find the full quotes here.
Current Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was Gallo’s teammate in both New York and Texas, even noticed the toll that Gallo’s struggles was causing him mentally.
“From a mental-health standpoint, being happy, he wasn’t able to enjoy showing up to work every day,” Kiner-Falefa said. “He was starting to worry about things he couldn’t control, as far as his welcoming on the field. One thing he probably dreaded was his name being called every day. It’s not because he didn’t want to play. But when he got on the field, he didn’t know if he was going to be dogged on. That really got to him.”
This isn’t the first time Gallo’s opened up about his struggles in New York, either. He opened up to MLB.com mere days after he was traded from New York to Los Angeles ahead of last season’s Aug. 2 deadline.
“My time in New York didn’t go as well as I wanted it to,” Gallo said, via MLB.com, last August. “Obviously I wish I played better. … If you don’t play well, they look for somebody else to take that job and do it. But I think it’s nice to get a fresh start and a new clubhouse and a new place on the other side of the country, completely. And just get back to playing baseball again and trying to win games for the Dodgers.”
Gallo is never going to wow most with his contact; he’s a career .199 hitter and was a career .208 hitter heading into the 2021 season. He’s one of baseball’s most notable “three true outcomes” — home run, walk, strikeout — player, even according to Gallo himself:
“I’ve always been that player,” he said in a 2019 interview with ESPN. “It’s not like I was built to be that. It’s who I’ve always been. I mean, 10 and under, 11, 12 — I was hitting home runs. I struck out more than everyone. And I walked a lot because they pitched around me. If they made a mistake, I hit it out. If I wasn’t feeling good, I struck out. Even high school was that. I enjoy home runs. When you think of baseball, the first thing you think of is a home run. Home runs are cool. That’s what everyone likes to watch. That’s what they show on the highlights.”
The Twins aren’t a pressurized environment that’s expecting to the outfielder to crush 40-plus home runs — like he did in Texas in 2017 and 2018 — with 90+ RBIs. Anything positively the 29-year-old can provide, whether it’s at the dish or in the field, alongside Carlos Correa, Jorge Polanco, Byron Buxton and Max Kepler, among others, should be a bonus.
If Gallo is able to have a resurgent season and help lead the Twins to a playoff run or leverage his way to another contender if Minnesota struggles, it will be one of the best feel-good stories across MLB in recent memory, especially if he’s able to ink a bigger contract down the road.
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