Yankees: At what point should fans be concerned about Joey Gallo trade?

We can chalk it up to bad luck, but how many times have we seen the unthinkable with New York Yankees players over the past two years? At some point, something is simply off and there’s no excuse other than downright poor performances.

Such is the case with Joey Gallo at the moment. When the Bombers traded for him at the deadline, they knew he wouldn’t hit for average. They knew he would strike out a ton. But they didn’t know he’d be this bad AND start grounding into double plays at a never-before-seen rate.

Since arriving in the Bronx, Gallo is hitting .149 with a .668 OPS. He’s grounded into three double plays across his first 30 games (all of them have come in the last four!) with the team after grounding into just three in his previous 95 with the Rangers and eight in his previous 346 games.

Is there any explanation for this? His stint with New York to close out 2021 is going to look a lot like his career-worst 2020 campaign.

And somehow his strikeout numbers are getting even worse. In a lineup that’s much better and protects him! He’s whiffed an insane 51 times in 128 at-bats. That’s a strikeout rate of 40%!

Again, we knew he’d be a redundant addition to the lineup, save for his Gold Glove/versatile defense and lefty bat, but at what point do we start worrying about this trade blowing up in the Yankees’ face?

The Joey Gallo trade is not looking good for the Yankees.

What’s done is done. The Yankees needed to do what they did at the trade deadline or else they wouldn’t be leading the AL Wild Card right now. We’re not going to go back and analyze the performance of the prospects that were sent to the Rangers back in late July.

However, Gallo is with New York through the 2022 season. He’s going to play a big role in this waning championship window. And the belief was that he would be “turning it around” at some point as he was struggling beyond belief amid the Yankees’ wild August run. Once he’s able to heat up, this lineup will truly be unstoppable, right?

But now the Yankees have lost four in a row and Gallo is 1-for-10 with four walks and three strikeouts and hasn’t been responsible for a single run since he homered against the A’s on Aug. 26. He’s gone hitless in 17 of his 30 games as a Yankee. We have no evidence of Gallo being able to “heat up” in his new threads.

Brian Cashman didn’t acquire Gallo for him to be a fancy display piece. Sure, he’d play that role at times lengthening the lineup providing versatility, and putting forth tough at-bats despite not being able to get on base … but not for this long.

At some point it has to end. We don’t know when it will, but we’re sure hoping it’s soon because the clock is running out in 2021 and the postseason will be here before you know it.

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