Well, one thing is for sure: The New York Yankees will have the best three-tight end formation in the majors.
Adding Joey Gallo to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton certainly gives the Yankees the most physically imposing trio of batsmen in history, topping even the Bash Brothers threesome of Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and Dave Parker for the A's in the late 1980s.
In fun a bit of trivia, the Yankees now roster three of the top six players all time in home run ratio (minimum 1,500 at-bats):
Mark McGwire: 10.6 ABs per HR
Babe Ruth: 11.8
Joey Gallo: 12.6
Barry Bonds: 12.9
Aaron Judge: 13.1
Gary Sanchez: 13.7
There is also no doubt that Gallo is tailor-made for the short porch at Yankee Stadium. Of his 145 career home runs, 75 have gone to right field and 39 to center field. The Yankees also desperately needed a left-handed bat. Gallo's 25 home runs in 2021 are more than the 22 the Yankees have hit all season from the left side.
Still, why are the Yankees making this big of a trade given the state of their season? After all, they entered the evening a distant 8.5 games behind the Red Sox in the American League East, three games behind the A's for the second wild card (and the A's made their own significant addition on Wednesday in acquiring Starling Marte from the Marlins) and not really showing any signs that they're anything other than mediocre. Gallo also cost the Yankees, in Jeff Passan's words, "a massive haul of prospects." Time will tell on that side of the trade, but a massive haul of potential is still a steep price to pay, no matter the return, and teams chasing a playoff spot like the Yankees are usually reluctant to trade away prospects for a playoff run that is hardly a lock.
Gallo is also a career .211 hitter -- .223 this season -- who mixes awe-inspiring displays of power with a frustrating number of strikeouts, 125 in 95 games this season (which actually gives him a career-low 32.2% strikeout rate). That's another strikeout hitter added to a lineup that already has the fourth-highest strikeout rate in the AL.
To be fair, we know batting average is hardly the best way to measure a hitter's value, and Gallo does add a boatload of walks, as he leads the majors with 74, giving him an overall batting line of .223/.379/.490. Still, this is a player of extremes: At his best, during his 70 games in 2019, he hit .253/.389/.598. At his worst, 57 games in 2020, he hit .189/.301/.378. He has split the difference in 2021.
Further, despite the Three True Outcomes nature to his game -- note that he also rarely hits a double, with just 14 over the past two seasons -- Gallo is hardly a big slug as his numbers might indicate, as he is a Gold Glove right fielder with an excellent arm. His 14 defensive runs saved in 2021 is the highest at one position of any player in the majors. With Judge seemingly locked into right field, Gallo probably moves to center, where he last played in 2019 and handled it just fine.
The big key is that Gallo is under team control for another season, so this is about 2022 as much as 2021. Just as importantly, though, while the season has hardly gone the way the Yankees envisioned, the wild card is still attainable. Of course, let's not pat the Yankees on the back too much here for making a blockbuster. They traded Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson to the Reds late Tuesday to clear space on the payroll for Gallo's contract. (Gallo is making $6.2 million this year, so is owed about $2 million the rest of the way.) Sure, the Yankees want to win, but the top priority all along for the front office and ownership is for the richest team in the sport to remain below the $210 million luxury tax threshold -- and they're pushing right up against it.
While many Yankees fans have been clamoring for pitching help, it's also clear the offense was in the biggest need of repair. The Yankees -- the Bronx Bombers! -- are 14th in the AL in runs per game, after finishing first or second over the past four seasons. They haven't had an offense this bad since the 1990 Yankees of Alvaro Espinoza, Oscar Azocar and Steve Balboni finished last in the league in runs. A big problem has been their situational hitting. They rank seventh in the AL in OPS -- but last in OPS with runners in scoring position. The pitching, meanwhile, despite some memorable blown leads, was fifth entering Wednesday in the AL in runs allowed per game.
It's also worth noting that it's been the offense that has let the Yankees down in the postseason in recent years more so than the pitching. They scored one run in the Game 5 loss to the Rays last season. They hit .214 against the Astros in the 2019 championship series and scored 21 runs in six games (holding Houston to a .179 average and 22 runs). In the 2017 championship series loss to the Astros, the Yankees hit .205 and scored 22 runs in seven games (holding the Astros to a .187 average and 20 runs).
The Yankees began the day with a 3.6% chance to win the division and a 37.6% of winning a wild-card spot, according to FanGraphs. This is still a roster that has underperformed, and it's worth mentioning that they've already played 15 games against the Rays after Wednesday's contest and 13 against the Red Sox, so the Yankees have 10 games left against the teams ahead of them. The lack of head-to-head games doesn't help New York in trying to chase those teams down, but it does mean a pretty soft schedule the rest of the way. Indeed, after this series against Tampa Bay comes a soft, 13-game stretch against the Marlins, Orioles, Mariners and Royals that should be a ripe time to make a move.
Does that mean there's another big deal in the works? Unlikely. It seems the Yankees are intent on remaining below the luxury tax. The Gallo trade is about improving for the final two months, but it's really about gearing up for better things in 2022, when the Yanks presumably would increase their payroll back up to 2020 (about $240 million pre-pandemic) and 2019 ($235 million) levels.
Now, let's get that new Bash Brothers poster in production.