MESA, Ariz. — The Yankees have their 26-man roster set for Opening Day, and Luis Gil is not on it.
Instead, the right-hander will begin the season in the minors to stay built up until the Yankees need a fifth starter, with Gil being the odd man out of the four-man rotation they will use over the first two-plus weeks of the season due to multiple off days.
Gil, the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year, will stay back in Tampa to throw live batting practice on Wednesday and pitch again there five days later. Then he will head to Triple-A to make another start — tentatively scheduled for April 4 — lining him up to make his next start in the majors when the Yankees need a fifth starter.
“I think he was a little upset about it, but I feel like he’s in a good frame of mind right now,” manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday at Sloan Park, a few days after meeting with Gil to lay out the Yankees’ thinking for such a decision.
“He understands the situation. It’s still not great news to hear [for] a guy that’s been in the rotation, he expected to be in the rotation and we expect him to be in the rotation. But at the same time, there’s also a lot of people pushing for competition right now that are pushing themselves into the conversation. That competition’s going to remain, so it’s important that Luis continues the trajectory he’s been on since the start of camp.”
The Yankees debated carrying Gil, who missed the first four months of last season with a lat strain, on the initial roster to use him out of the bullpen in a piggyback role. But they ultimately opted to take an extra reliever — Cade Winquest, Brent Headrick and Jake Bird all made the team — especially with Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn already offering length in relief. This way, Gil will have a clearer path to staying built up in a starter’s workload for when the Yankees need him.
For most of the spring, Gil was slow to regain the dominant stuff that he flashed in the first half of 2024. He finally showed it in his final start of camp last Friday against the Orioles, with a lively fastball that generated the swing-and-miss that he had been missing, but it was not enough to force his way into the rotation to begin the year.
“He’s moved the needle every single outing, even the one where he got hit around a little bit — slight, subtle improvements in his fastball quality, the velo[city], the profile of it,” Boone said. “But we never saw that ’24 level until his last start, which was super encouraging. If we can continue that, we’re in business. That’s the guy we want to see.”
With four off days before their 10th game of the season, the Yankees will open with a rotation of Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren and Ryan Weathers. Weathers got hit around this spring with an 11.68 ERA entering his outing Tuesday against the Cubs, but the Yankees believe he pitched better and had better stuff than the surface numbers indicated.
As for Winquest making the team — the Rule 5 pick had to be on the roster or be offered back to the Cardinals — Boone said the Yankees saw enough from him this spring to bet on his upside, despite posting a 7.20 ERA across nine appearances.
“We feel like now is the time to continue to give that opportunity,” Boone said. “There was nothing that we saw, especially some of the things he’s been working on, that said, ‘Let’s not take the chance on him.’ So hopefully he continues to get settled in and can earn himself and establish himself a role.”
