What should Yankees do with Joey Gallo as MLB trade deadline looms?

You won't hear many boos at Yankee Stadium this season (unless the Houston Astros are in town), but they have been abundant when Joey Gallo somberly walks back to the first base dugout, head down after making yet another out. 

It's hard to nitpick a team when they're the best in any sport, and at 58-22, the Yanks are the cream of the crop in MLB right now. That doesn't mean GM Brian Cashman shouldn't be forward-thinking with this year's trade deadline coming up on Aug. 2. 

Gallo, then, is someone in the wrong kind of spotlight this time of year due to his lack of production. Since donning pinstripes after last season's deadline he's posted a .165/.277/.325 slash line with 22 homers and 40 RBI in 124 games. He's struck out 177 times as well. 

In the field, Gallo's glove has always been a strong suit. However, he is minus-3 outs above average, which is a metric that shows how many outs a player has saved over fellow fielders, in this case the outfield. 

So what does Cashman do about this guy he took a chance on last season, because despite everyone saying "You should've expected this from Gallo when you traded for him," it's actually been much worse. He slashed .211/.336/.497 with a .833 OPS with the Texas Rangers over six-and-a-half seasons.

As a win-now team, Cashman is going to find positions that might be liabilities in the postseason and upgrade them. He's not new in the game and understands teams that look good during the regular season might have cracks that need some filling to make sure things don't crumble when pressure it at its highest. 

That means outfielders will be on the radar. Andrew Benintendi and Ian Happ are hot names out there in the rumor mill, both being linked to the Yanks for their ability to play a good corner outfield and hit from the left side of the plate (Happ is a switch hitter). 

Where would that leave Gallo if a trade were to go down? Do the Yankees just outright DFA him and eat the rest of his money owed (he earned $10.275 million for '22, after which he's an unrestricted free agent)?

It's a tough question for Cashman to answer.

There is a plethora of current options for the outfield. Aaron Hicks has played much better, which has made him the primary left fielder with Aaron Judge playing mainly in center field recently. Giancarlo Stanton still gets his time in right. That leaves Gallo, utility man Marwin Gonzalez and now Matt Carpenter got a taste in the outfield during Sunday's 2-0 loss to the Guardians. Both Gonzalez and Carpenter are hitting better than Gallo this season.

Then, you can look in the minors and see Estevan Florial having himself a hot streak with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. And even more of a hot button topic with Yankee fans is Miguel Andujar and his production every time he gets called up. He was the 27th man for the Yanks this past week, produced another RBI hit, but was sent back down again. Some believe he deserves to stay up because he's doing his job at the dish every time he gets promoted.

So that's where Gallo finds himself: Caught between pressure from the fans, his own teammates vying for more time, and most importantly, his own struggles at the plate.

In the end, it's hard to see the Yanks just letting Gallo go and being signed elsewhere at no cost. What if he figures it out and performs well, especially for a team that might be in the postseason?

The only thing we do know is that Gallo isn't helping himself with this one. And if he wants to stay with the Yanks in the second half and through this postseason push, he has less than a month to make it easier on the front office.

if not, he could find himself on the bench much more, or wearing something other than pinstripes.