Luis Gil has the fastball and the demeanor, but can he stay healthy?
Luis Gil truly burst upon the scene last year. His minor-league career was filled with injuries and inconsistencies, but he did have an overpowering fastball. He looked destined for the bullpen, maybe even the closer role, if he could stay healthy.
Therein lies the rub.
Gil only pitched in 25.2 innings in 2022, and he wasn’t good when he did. All but four of those innings were thrown in Scranton, where he finished with a 7.89 ERA and a WHIP of 1.662. Indeed, his whole career looked finished when he walked off the mound that May with an elbow injury and straight into Tommy John surgery. This was after he had to miss 2016 with shoulder surgery. The next season was also a wash, with Gil pitching only four innings for Low-A Tampa to the tune of an ERA of 11.25 and an unholy WHIP of 2.25. He entered Yankees 2024 Spring Training as little more than an afterthought, a promising project at best.
That narrative seemed to play true when he was among the first players to be cut from the camp.
But the baseball gods had other ideas. They reached down and flicked Gerrit Cole onto the injured list and opened up a spot on the roster. Gil had looked good in his early action and was brought back more out of necessity than acclaim, but was still near the bottom of the depth chart.
For Gil, it was the right break at the right time.
Breaking Good
All of a sudden he showed off not just his overpowering fastball, but a complete repertoire of pitches. Fangraphs Stuff+, for instance, ranks his fastball as the third best in the game, and his overall arsenal in the top twenty. His success wasn’t just good…it was Ace-like. I’ll let the always-excellent Bryan Hoch sum it up:
“In 14 starts until Cole rejoined the rotation on June 19, Gil was 9-1 with a 2.03 ERA, holding opponents to a razor-thin .142 batting average and .495 OPS.”
He finished the season sporting a 3.50 ERA and a WHIP of 1.193 while striking out 171 batters in 151 IP. And, of course, the Rookie of the Year award.
That stacks up well against his pitching predecessors. Pettitte finished his rookie year of 1995 with a 4.17 ERA and WHIP of 1.406. That, however, was also the steroid era when monsters loomed large over the plate, so Pettitte’s numbers were good enough for third in the Rookie of the Year voting. Severino had the best debut of the three, throwing eleven games in 2015 to the tune of a 2.89 ERA to go with a WHIP of 1.203. He didn’t pitch enough games for ROY consideration because it seems likely he would have won it if he had.
We know what happened to Pettitte and Severino; now we ponder the fate of Gil.
It’s hard to imagine a man with as many injuries as he has had to stay healthy moving forward. Since writing that line, Gil has already gone down with another injury, but at least it seems as if something he can come back from this season. If and when he does, he’ll bring Severino’s fastball and Andy Pettitte’s demeanor on the mound. He’s an Ace in the making, but only if he can make it to the field.
Staying on the field has never been Anthony Volpe’s problem. But his offense might be.
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