Nice win to wake up to.
I'd like to take a look at the quietly successful season of Joey Gallo so far. First blush is "geez only one homer" but his sample size to date is interesting. He has always been a high strike out guy, and likely always will be. For his career, he strikes out about 2.5 times for every time he walks.
Last night he went 1 for 3 with two walks. Got me to thinking to look at his K and BB ratios for this year. And he seems to have a different approach at the plate this year.
It is a small sample size, but he's just under 1.3 K/BB for the season so far. His K% is 27%, which is still well above the MLB average, but not leading the league like he normally does. Hell, he's in 16th place for most Ks so far. There are two Rangers with more Ks than him - Lowe and Solak with 18 each.
Gallo's BB% of 22% is actually one of the very best in all of baseball. His 13 walks leads all of MLB this season so far. Wow.
What's it mean? Well, I think pitchers go into his at bats with the intention of almost never throwing a strike. His approach seems to have morphed into "I'm only swinging at pitches right in the middle of the zone".
Gallo is one of those rare talents, like Vlad Sr., who can hit a ball one foot off the plate out of the park. So it begs the metrics question: Do we really want him taking those pitches for walks and getting stranded on first?
The old school baseball guy in me says "hell yes - make them pitch to you." If Gallo keeps this up, I think pitchers have to adjust since their K/BB rate is a big selling point in free agency. But maybe giving Gallo one base more often instead of four is a good strategy.
Thoughts on this? Is it really good for Gallo to be taking all these walks?
