The Texas Rangers haven't had the best luck with some of their top prospects in recent years.
There, of course, was the whole DVD (Danks, Volquez, Diamond) debacle of a few years back, and then most recently their mishandling of Jurickson Profar and Mike Olt, the former of which is about to miss his second consecutive full season and the latter of which is struggling in the Cubs system.
With their most recent phenom, the Rangers are wanting to get it right, and apparently that means keeping Joey Gallo at his natural position and not tinkering with something new with the possibility of putting him on a faster track to the big leagues.
Gallo, who is a natural third baseman, is obviously blocked positionally in Arlington by Adrian Beltre, though at Beltre's advancing age he could always be a full-time designated hitter candidate but he is still one of league's best defensive third basemen. There was thought last year of getting Gallo, who is arguably the top power-hitting prospect in baseball, work in the outfield to fill one of the corner outfield spots in Arlington, and he played a handful of minor-league games there.
But new manager Jeff Banister said there are no plans to work Gallo in the outfield this spring, even if it would allow him to get to the bigs faster with a wide-open competition for the left field job ongoing between three or four guys.
“It’s an interesting question,” Banister told The Dallas Morning News of looking at Gallo in the outfield. “But this is the position he’s played since he got into pro baseball. He is a third baseman and he’s going to be a good big league third baseman. We’re going to let him focus on that.”
