WHAT HAPPENED To JOEY GALLO

in case you don't know Joey Gallow was recently signed by the Washington Nationals over the offseason to a one-year $5 million deal and a bunch of fans were confused as to why the Nationals signed him or for that matter why any team would sign him as most Baseball fans know Joey Gallo's career so far has probably been one of the strangest so far from being an All-Star and being hailed as possibly the best upand cominging home run hitter to being one of the most hated players in the league to fading out of the spotlight his early career started in his home state of Nevada where he went to Bishop height school which is a pretty notable Sports school that sent multiple players to the MLB while he was there in his final season in 2011 he had an insane year having a 471 batting average with 25 home runs and 76 RBI and was regarded as a top prospect I mean this dude was a beast he was 6'5 205 lbs in the Nevada baseball player of the year and during a showcase tournament he hit a 442 ft bomb at PCO Park which at the time was the 10th longest home run ever at that Park also interestingly enough in his scouting report back in 2012 it says that what a lot of teams were interested in was his potential at pitching yeah I know that's kind of insane right he was playing Third Base at the time so a Scouting Report says that he threw in the low 90s across the diamond and I guess considering that he had a massive frame he had potential to be a pitcher that would have been interesting to see anyways after being drafted by the Texas Rangers in 2012 it seems like they were committed to keeping him as a Fielder rather than a pitcher and he progressed pretty quickly hitting the most home runs in the minor leagues in 2013 and he started to cement himself as a top prospect for hitting power in the miners though his batting average was honestly pretty solid he was batting 251 in the miners and while that isn't as high as most other top prospects his power made up for it but there was one glaring problem with his batting statistics across 411 at bats in the miners he struck out 172 times and listen there's a bunch of players who strike out a bunch who are still considered good players maybe even Elite I mean take Kyle schwarber for example last year he led the league in strikeouts with 215 strikeouts and he even had a sub20 batting average but his 47 home runs and high walk rate made him a really good player so while Joey Gallo's High strikeout rate was alarming it wasn't the end of the world at least at the time he eventually got promoted to the big leagues in 2015 and probably had one of the best debuts you can possibly have he hit a two-run homer giving the Rangers a 6-2 lead and ended up finishing the game with four RB in a current call he went back and forth between the miners and the MLB for the next season or two but really started to cement himself as a starter in 2017 when he hit over 40 home runs but expectedly batted near 200 his breakout year came in 2019 when he just went crazy out of the gates in the third week of the Season he hit four home runs over six games and maintained a solid batting average in the 250s that had everyone around the league thinking that he might just be the next big thing he ended up making the All-Star game that season and even hit a home run in one at bat which was pretty cool but an injury to his hand cut his season short and we didn't get to see what could have been I mean maybe he could have kept it up for the rest of the year and won an MVP award but given his later track record I don't really think that'd be accurate 2020 was a struggle for him and I think this is really where the crack started to show in his game he batted 181 that year didn't really hit many home runs and was overall a below average hitter but to be fair 2020 was the shorten season and a lot of players that were historically Elite like Jose Altuve had horrible Seasons so most players including Gallow were given a free pass for their decline in performance now 2021 was probably the most important year of Gallo's career and what would end up changing everything in the first half of the Season he was solid and back to his 2019 ways his batting average was in the 220s which was fine considering that he was hitting a bunch of home runs and also walking a lot which inflated his on base percentage now just for context the Rangers were a horrible team they were pretty much at the bottom of the standings only better than the Orioles and they only had a couple of years left of control over Gallows contract so they dealt him to the Yankees for some prospects and this was pretty much devastating for him I mean he knew that he was probably going to get traded that was obvious but he made it pretty clear before the deadline that he would have preferred to stay in Texas since it was his home and he he'd been in the organization for so long maybe he could see the disaster that was about to happen what happened in New York was honestly horrible as most fans know Yankees fans are probably the hardest fans to please in the world and judge is hearing booze well of course he should be hearing them he hasn't homered in over a week I mean I could be wrong but most other teams in the MLB don't have fans that boo their own players regularly Galla was regularly seen as a stand-up guy and at first the Yankees fans loved him he was a star and everyone wanted to see him hit some bombs and dump some home runs into the short porch and left field they were promised a power hitter and he simply struggled he struck out again and again and again and the fans hazed him he batted 160 with the Yankees the rest of the year occasionally hitting home runs but it was obvious that something changed I personally think that it was two things first off I think a big part of it was the mental game he came to New York with the expectation that he would somehow bring them to the World Series or hit 50 home runs and when he started to struggle a bit he lost confidence in his usual swing and started to swing harder or at least mess around with it causing him to whiff more and second of all I think a big thing that people didn't really realize is how much his on base percentage or Stat in general were propped up by his walk rate on the Rangers the Rangers were a bad team where he was virtually the only star so opposing teams could pitch around him giving him a bunch of walks now on the Yankees with other top players like judge and Stanton walking Gallow wasn't really an option so rather than pitching around him like they usually did they changed things up and Gallow probably couldn't adjust to it and that's why his walk rate dipped significantly on the Yankees anyways Gallow started to get called wased and he was basically harassed by Yankees fans in an interview he even said that he didn't want to leave his apartment in New York because of the fans which is just sad he did end up getting a fresh start when he was traded the next season to the Dodgers and he only slightly improved he still batted nearly 160 and even though the fans didn't boo him like they did in New York he didn't get resigned in 2023 and went to the twins he had some injuries last season but overall had a much better season still having a low batting average at 177 with 21 home runs but was otherwise decent now I think the main problem with Gallow was that he was always hyped up to be better than he actually was which caused a lot of fans to dislike him I don't think people actually understand how his game works teams signed him knowing that he'll probably bat near 200 or maybe even below that but his home run production and high Walker make him a decent player and I get that the Yankees signed him when he was red hot but there was no reason to think that he would be getting a bunch of hits if you look at his stats in his career the only objectively bad season that he had was 2022 so I think that it's just a matter of people play placing insanely high expectations on him either way this upcoming year on the Nationals is going to be interesting because they've been known to help veteran players bounce back such as jamer candelario and Kyle schwarber do you think Joey Gallow has what it takes to bounce back thanks for watching and please like And subscribe for everything baseball related