Rising Prospect #1 - Joey Gallo (Texas Rangers)

Baseball is known to many as America's Pastime. Many people across the country enjoy playing and watching this lovable game. Some, even get the pleasure of playing the game of baseball as their career. In the great span of things, very few individuals get to fulfill their lifetime dream of reaching the Major Leagues to become a superstar. In this blog, I am going to divulge into some of the best prospects across minor league baseball.

Background on Joey

The prospect that I will talk about this week is Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers. Joey Gallo was drafted in the first round (39th overall) in the 2012 MLB draft by the Texas Rangers. As of the end of the end of the 2014 Minor League season, Gallo was rated as the Rangers #1 overall prospect and MLB's #7 overall prospect according to MLB.com. He split the entire 2014 season between the Rangers Single A Advanced affiliate and their Double A affiliate.

How Did 2014 Go?

Now that some of the basic information has been established about Mr. Gallo, we can talk about why I consider him to be one of the fastest and most promising rising stars in all of baseball. In his split time in A+ and AA ball, he was able to hit a whopping 41 home runs. Not many 20 year olds have power like that! Not only did he hit 41 home runs, he was able to hit for an average of .271 between both teams while compiling 106 runs batted in (RBI). With Gallo's power comes the chance that he will strikeout a lot. This is something that is very common with many power hitters. Gallo can hit very well but he can also play some pretty good defense. He had a fielding percentage of .951 between both teams. He may lack some defensive ability but he has a very strong arm from the hot corner at third base. The most lacking part of his game involves his ability on the base paths, which limits him to some extent.

Gallo also earned many honors and awards from the past season. Some of his awards include:

• MVP in the Carolina League (A+)
• Futures Game selection along with Futures Game MVP
• 4x player of the week throughout the 2014 season

Overall, I believe that Joey Gallo is a very talented and promising player. I think that he can go very far with his career in baseball. He will most likely have to depend on his bat to become the star that he has the potential to be. Due to his power, he might find himself in the DH role for a large majority of his career as he goes through the ranks.

Mike's Rating
           A

Feel free to share your thoughts and insight on Joey Gallo or anything that was said in this blog! Thanks for reading!