Bradford Doolittle hands out grades as the New York Yankees reportedly acquire OF Joey Gallo and LHP Joely Rodriguez from the Texas Rangers for four prospects: 2B Ezequiel Duran, IF Josh Smith, RHP Glenn Otto and 2B/OF Trevor Hauver.
YANKEES: B
Hey, this is one of the deals I wanted to see! Of course, I prefaced that desire by stating I didn't know if Gallo joining the Yankees was a good idea. I still don't. But I'm very excited to watch it play out.
Gallo is one of the more extreme players in recent baseball history. Few hitters have as much raw power, though he might sometimes share an outfield with two of them in Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Few hitters strike out as often. Few have ever struck out as often. His game is all secondary skills, with a career OPS+ of 116 that is built off a batting average of .211. This year has been more of the same: Gallo has 25 homers, leads the AL with 74 walks and is hitting .223.
This resume is an extreme version of what the Yankees kind of already do. This year's New York offense -- one of the more stunningly underachieving units in baseball -- features more strikeouts than all but three other AL teams. Long balls have been comparatively scarce for a team that has clubbed homers at historic levels in recent years, but the Yankees still rank ninth in the percent of their runs that have come via the home run (44.8%).
In a vacuum, Gallo is a clear upgrade. The Yankees rank 27th in overall outfield bWAR, a rating that includes a No. 29 rank from the revolving door in left field and No. 25 in center. Gallo, who has already put up 4.1 bWAR this season, would lift either position into the top five if he had been playing it all season.
Gallo also is a much-needed pull-heavy lefty power bat the Yankees can unleash at a home park that is built for just such hitters, although he's just 3-for-15 with no homers or RBIs over four career games at the ballpark for his career. He'll rejoin former Texas teammate Rougned Odor in the Bronx. Since he joined New York, Odor has been the Yankees' primary source of power from the left side of the plate, which is more a symptom than a cure. Odor has homered six times at Yankee Stadium this year, though he has just 18 overall hits at the venue while hitting .189.
On a healthy Yankees roster, Gallo would figure to play somewhere other than right field, where he was the AL's Gold Glove winner last season. This season, all 83 of his appearances in the field have come in right, the domain of Judge, who was activated from the COVID-19 injured list earlier this week, but was scratched from the New York lineup before Wednesday's game.
Gallo has played more games in left field (156) than right (152) over the course of his career, and has also played 55 games in center field. He has posted positive defensive runs saved totals at all three spots.
With Miami's Starling Marte going to Oakland in a trade earlier on Wednesday, Gallo might have been the Yankees' best hope for a splashy outfield addition. Would the package of prospects the Yankees sent to Texas have been enough to land Marte? Maybe not. The Marlins went for quality over quantity in the deal with the A's, taking back talented lefty hurler Jesus Luzardo in a straight-up swap.
Plus the deal wouldn't have made as much sense for New York in terms of value. The obvious reason is that Marte will be a free agent after the season, while Gallo has one more year of arbitration eligibility remaining.
Also, in Joely Rodriguez, the Yankees get another bullpen option for Aaron Boone. (Though, in the originally reported structure to the deal, the Yankees would have gotten back lefty John King, who would have been a more impactful addition. In fact, I downgraded the Yankees from a B+ when the updated information came along.) Rodriguez, 29, is a journeyman type with no discernible platoon split, but also no discernible strengths.
As has been widely noted, of the four prospects reported as heading to Texas, none were from the upper rungs of the Yankees' prospect list. That's not to say there is nothing lost. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel ranked 2B Ezequiel Duran as New York's No. 9 prospect in his preseason ratings with a Future Value of 45. Several of the others rated in the 40-45 range in terms of overall grade, according to other outlets.
What this suggests is also something that has been widely noted: The Yankees' system might not have been bursting with superstar prospects outside of the super-talented and super-raw Jasson Dominguez. But it was rich in solid, coveted players whose presence enabled Brian Cashman to make one of the deadline's biggest splashes. The Yankees might not be done, of course, but this week, they've added Gallo, Rodriguez and former Pirates reliever Clay Holmes. They've tapped into that depth to make that happen.
In landing Gallo, they've added an impact slugger having a career season, who also features a high-caliber glove. They've also added another huge, imposing power hitter who strikes out at prodigious rates. This could go very well, or it could go very badly. Either way, now that Gallo is headed for the Bronx, everybody is sure to hear how it comes out.
RANGERS: B-
Only Rangers exec Jon Daniels and his staff know what other offers were there to be had for Gallo. Perhaps some of those offers will leak out, but for now, what we can say is that the Rangers opted for quantity by taking on six prospects who -- let's face it -- will spur many of their fans to say, "Who?"
Duran is a hard-hitting middle infielder who is having a strong season in high-A, slashing at .290/.374/.533. Smith is a high-contract middle infielder who does damage on the bases. Hauver was a third-round pick by the Yankees last season. He's already 22 and playing in low-A, but he has slashed .288/.445/.498 at that level in his first exposure to professional game action.
Otto reached the upper levels of the Yankees' system with startling strikeout-to-walk numbers -- 115 whiffs against 17 walks in just 75 2/3 innings over 13 outings. His pro career got off to a slow start because of injuries, health woes and the pandemic, but the Rangers might be getting him at just the right time.
In the initially reported version of the deal, the Rangers would have also received a center fielder with decent upside in Everson Pereira plus a lottery-ticket righty in Randy Vasquez. I liked that version of the deal a little better for Texas. After all, six prospects is a lot of prospects. However, because the Rangers will apparently hold on to King, this mitigates the difference to some extent, and thus I didn't change their grade.
Will any of these players eventually hold down key roles for the Rangers? Maybe. In the case of Duran, you might even say, "Probably." Will any of them make Rangers fans forget about Gallo's soaring drives? Doubtful.
On a surplus value ledger, the Rangers came out just fine*. But the level of certainty in the value Gallo provides and the prospects cannot is the wild card. This is the kind of deal on which organizations like the Rays excel at, so it can work. Trade a good, name-brand young veteran for multiple players no one has heard of, but who have identifiable strengths that you can leverage in a deep organization. Perhaps that is the Rangers' intent, and it'll be a couple of years before we know if they would have been better served to just keep Gallo and push to sign him to an extension.
This is the kind of deal rebuilding teams do. It's just hard to imagine too many Rangers fans are excited about it. And it would be nice to know what sort of conversations Daniels reportedly had with his old buddy A.J. Preller in San Diego, whose system is bursting with high-end prospects.
* The morning after the initial reports of the trade, additional details regarding the money aspect of it were reported that merit mention. Per Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Rangers will be paying the salaries of Rodriguez and Gallo for the rest of the season. This means that the Yankees should still have a few million dollars in space left under the $210 million luxury tax threshold in order to make further additions to their roster.
Based on this, I downgraded the Rangers to a B-. With each iteration of the reported details on the trade, the surplus value calculation looked increasingly worse for the Rangers. This of course is based on how the four prospects included in the deal are rated by analysts. Texas' internal ratings of those Yankees prospects would seem to be higher, and if they are right, then the surplus value comparison would balance out. Either way, it's not a matter of the Rangers (or the Yankees, for that matter) being fleeced.
I didn't change the grade for the Yankees. If the luxury tax threshold were a hard cap, you'd certainly give the Yankees kudos for retaining some payroll flexibility. But the other way to look at it is, hey, these are the New York Yankees. Why are we talking about the luxury tax threshold?