Ryan Garcia
Luis Gil getting shelled in a meaningless game isn’t something the Yankees will or should care about, but the process he has on the mound is clearly and deeply flawed.
A power pitcher who has not flashed the outlier-level velocity that made him a darkhorse Cy Young contender in the first half of the 2024 season has disappeared, vanishing with the wind after multiple IL stints.
His ability to blow fastballs by hitters helped him mask some of the glaring flaws in his game such as poor command and a limited pitch mix, but without that heat, he looks a lot like what we saw last season.
With Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole returning in the first half and young prospects on the way who could make an impact in the second half of the season, the Yankees may need to consider using Luis Gil as a reliever.
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All Signs Point Towards the Yankees Moving Luis Gil To the Bullpen
Luis Gil had a 2.03 ERA and 3.85 xFIP through his first 14 starts of 2024, indications that he was both lucky but also pitching well, and it was in-part due to a fastball that sat around 96.6 MPH.
He hit the IL following a stretch where he had a 5.84 ERA and 5.06 FIP in 10 starts, and he has yet to return with the same explosive heater even in 2026.
With less than two weeks before the season starts his best average fastball velocity in an outing was 95.8 MPH, just 0.5 MPH better than his average velocity in 2025 (95.3 MPH).
An 18.8% Whiff% and .465 xSLG% last season indicate that Luis Gil’s fastball struggled to avoid contact, and when hitters did make contact it often resulted in damage contact.
This isn’t good of course, but the issue is amplified by a shallow pitch mix that makes him predictable and easier for lineups to read as they see him two or three times in a game.
The pitch mix we’ve seen in Spring training is essentially the same we saw during the 2025 season; his fastball has the same velocity and movement profile while the slider and changeup have also remained the same.
His lone cutter is a poorly thrown slider, another issue in Gil’s mix where he cannot consistently throw the same slider shape which results in hung pitches and inconsistent command.
We could praise the 20% K-BB% and 6.2% BB%, but he’s traded misses out of zone for misses in-zone which result in home runs and damage contact.
If the Yankees want to get value out of Gil and avoid shattering his confidence with a demotion to Scranton after a string of ugly starts, they should begin approaching him with the idea of working out of the bullpen.
This opens the door to cutting the fastball usage significantly since Gil could just air it out for an inning or two and throw whichever pitches are getting whiffs.
His command would still be an issue, but relievers are often failed starters who either had poor command or had underwhelming stuff.
However this ends up shaking out, I don’t think the Yankees can stomach 30 starts of Luis Gil in 2026, and while this take could age really poorly (and I hope it does for Gil’s sake), I can’t project a starter’s outcome for his pitching profile.
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