St. Louis Cardinals: Giovanny Gallegos is making a name for himself

The St. Louis Cardinals have a young reliever who is making a name for himself after coming to the team as a throw-in guy in the Voit trade.

The St. Louis Cardinals have been catching flak ever since they pulled the trigger on a trade that sent a player who seemed to be an AAAA player in Luke Voit to the Yankees last trade deadline for relievers Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos.

At the time, the Yankees were dealing with injury and needed infield reinforcements and the Cardinals just love their deadline bullpen additions so my initial reaction at the time was indifference.

Looking back we all know how good Luke Voit is doing with the Yankees and that Chasen Shreve never got off the ground here and crashed and burned before his release this year.

It seemed like a dead loss of a trade when Shreve was struggling last year (not like that changed) and Voit was going off but with Shreve gone, it’s the other piece of the trade that is proving his worth for the Cardinals.

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Giovanny Gallegos debuted at the age of 25 with the Yankees in 2017 but only threw in 16 games with a 4.87 ERA. Last year, Gallegos didn’t get much more of an opportunity with either the Yankees or the Cardinals as he appeared in just six total games.

This year though, Gallegos is proving to be a fantastic option for Mike Shildt in the bullpen.

Through 29 games and 33.2 innings, Gallegos has just a 2.67 ERA and a FIP of 2.58 which means he has been slightly better than what his ERA shows. Gallegos has been 59% better than the average MLB pitcher and is doing it by striking out 12.8 batters per nine and walking just 1.6.

If you haven’t paid much attention to Gallegos, he throws a fastball, slider, changeup and a big looping curveball and while his fastball doesn’t blow anyone away averaging 93.9 MPH, he throws his offspeed enough to speed that ball up.

If it weren’t for the performances of John Gant and John Brebbia, Gallegos would be getting a lot more attention for his performance this year. Gallegos has pitched mostly in the 7th inning but has honestly been a swiss army knife of a pitcher this year getting at least one out in every inning except the first this year.

A pitcher who can pitch anywhere in a game in any situation is incredibly valuable and the hope is obviously that he can keep up this performance. Gallegos would have to reach All-Star level performance to be able to offset how good Luke Voit has been since changing jerseys, but his performance at least off-sets the trade.

Gallegos is under team control until 2025 and if he can keep up his performance, he could find his way into higher leverage situations. The Cardinals bullpen has taken shape pretty well recently and if the team is going to go anywhere this year, a strong bullpen is going to be a huge key.