The Yankees have used nine different left fielders this season, a position they’ve struggled to fill for years.
They thought they addressed the issue around this time two years ago, when they traded four minor league prospects to the Rangers in exchange for Joey Gallo and reliever Joely Rodriguez.
Gallo was an All-Star with Texas that season and the Yankees hoped his left-handed power would be a perfect fit for Yankee Stadium.
Instead, Gallo had a disastrous run in The Bronx, providing a cautionary tale about players ill-suited to playing in New York.
As the Yankees head into this trade deadline still in search of a left fielder, Gallo is with the Minnesota Twins and has rebounded this season.
Despite hitting just .186 at the break, he has a solid OPS of .764 with 15 home runs and 28 RBIs in 69 games.
Still, he hasn’t shaken off what was a miserable year-long experience in The Bronx.
“I look back, and I’m sad about it,’’ Gallo said recently of his time in New York, which ended last July, when he was traded to the Dodgers in exchange for minor league pitcher Clayton Beeter, now 24 and recently promoted to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Beeter was at the Futures Game in Seattle this week.
It’s not the end Gallo was hoping for.
“I really grew up a Yankee fan, and all I wanted to do was play for the Yankees,’’ Gallo said. “I think part of it, not that it was a problem, but I wanted so badly to do well there.”
What looked good on paper never clicked for Gallo with the Yankees.
After compiling a career-OPS of .833 in six-plus years with the Rangers, Gallo finished his yearlong stint with the Yankees with an abysmal .660 OPS, a .159 batting average and by the end, he was drawing the ire of the fans he wanted desperately to impress.
While his already high strikeout-rate soared, advanced metrics show that Gallo did hit into some bad luck during that first half season with the Yankees and things only got worse in 2022, when his home run rate — which would have figured to jump thanks to his lefty swing at the Stadium — actually dipped.
“I’ll probably never have a chance to play for the Yankees again,’’ Gallo said. “That was my opportunity, and now I’m known as the guy who [f–king] sucked for the Yankees. That part is tough, and I have to live with that for the rest of my career and the rest of my life, really.”
A combination of factors worked against Gallo with the Yankees, as the infield shift, since banned, was effective against him and as much as the lifelong fan of the Yankees hoped to thrive in the spotlight of the Stadium, the glare clearly had a negative impact on him.
“That’s the nature of the beast, and you know it going in,’’ Gallo said. “Guys around the league aren’t wandering around the clubhouse saying, ‘I wonder what it’s like to play for the Yankees.’ We’re all aware it’s different there. If you don’t play well, you’re life is gonna be a lot tougher because you play in New York. You’ll have to answer a lot more questions, and there’s more scrutiny and a lot more eyes on you. But if you do well, you’re the king of the world, like [Aaron Judge].”
Gallo is still close to several of his former Yankee teammates, including Judge and Anthony Rizzo, who was traded from the Cubs at the same trade deadline as Gallo and has mostly thrived in The Bronx.
“I talk to those guys all the time,’’ Gallo said. “I’m so happy for Judge, the player and the guy.”
Judge and Gallo are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to playing in New York.
Gallo’s time ended when he was traded to the Dodgers, where he had a brief resurgence in laid-back Los Angeles but ended up with similarly ugly numbers there that he had in The Bronx.
And he wasn’t surprised by the move.
“I grew up in Vegas watching Yankee games, not Twins or Rangers games,” Gallo said. “If you’re not playing the best, they’re gonna go out and get the best.”
Despite the lack of success, Gallo has more than just regret about his time in New York.
“I did get to play for the Yankees and get to experience what that was like,’’ Gallo said. “I loved my teammates there and I loved the team. … I’m proud I showed up and played hard. I didn’t play up to my ability and the way I wished I would’ve played. But I still went out there and played every day as hard as I could and did whatever they asked of me.”
“I look back and it’s tough. I wanted to have success there, and I didn’t. You want to make people happy and the team happy, and I didn’t feel like I did that. It eats you up a little bit and over the course of my career; that’s something I’ll have to come to grips with.”