By Jonah Drew

Who is this absolute fire baller who has seemingly popped up out of thin air and magically became the best pitcher in baseball. Well, that would be a Yankees’ rookie right hander, Luis Gil. Gil was signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Minnesota Twins for just $90,000 all the way back in 2015. For reference, this man has been in the Minor Leagues since the Obama administration and is just now making his graduating his prospect status, and still, he is dominating. After a 2017 MiLB season in which he 41 solid rookie ball innings, the Yankees smartly identified him, and brought him in for outfielder, Jake Cave. While his results fluctuated, strikeouts were a constant, he did not have significant Minor League Stint in which he did not have double digits strikeouts per 9. Unfortunately, the other constant was his lack of control. Walking 5.4 per 9 for his Minor League career, control was essentially the only thing holding him back. Even as Stuff>Pitchability today’s MLB is, the list of guys who can survive(let alone dominate)walking more than 5 per 9 as big league starters is extremely short but in an interesting development, Luis Gil has firmly put himself in that group.

Before we get too deep into the murky analytical waters let’s just take a second to awe at the pure surface level dominance of Mr. Gil. Despite technically being a Rookie coming into 2024, this is actually his third time with the big club, he had a cup of coffee in the bigs in both 2021 and 2022. The former was actually a massive success, Gil made six starts, to the tune of a 3.08 ERA(141 ERA+). On the contrary, 2022 was a short-lived failure, Gil only survived to see one start in which he only went 4.0 Innings, allowing 5 earned on 5 hits and 2 walks. 2024 however, has been a completely different ball game. Luis Gil has pitched 63.1 Innings across 11 starts, posting a sub 2 ERA while striking out 31.7% of batters. Frankly, Gil has been unhittable, opposing hitters are batting an absolutely minuscule, league leading, .135 against him. He also leads baseball in hits per 9 at 4.1. In his 11 starts, how many do you think have resulted in more than 3 earned runs? If you said more than one, than you’d be incorrect, that is unbelievable. Gil has been getting better by the start, at first he was going roughly 4 innings but fast-forward to his latest outing, 8 innings vs the halos. That start was much more than just pure quantity though, in fact it was utter dominance.

8.0 Innings 2 Hits 1 Earned Run 9 Strikeouts 2 Walks 15 Whiffs 47.8 WPA and a W

However, hot starts like these are not completely exclusive to Luis Gil. It does happen every so often where a pitcher has a great 10-11 starts and quickly comes back to earth and then some. That said, we have plenty of reason to believe that this version of Luis Gil is legit. For starters, Gil has an expected ERA of an 89th percentile, 2.77. Gil also has an expected batting average of .181 and an expected slugging percentage of .298. As you would expect Gil is dominant in the swing and miss department. Just to reiterate, Gil is sitting at a 31.7% K rate. To go along with this, Gil has a 30.5% whiff rate and an 82.4% zone contact. Unlike most other swing and miss savants, Gil is not susceptible to hard contact at all, in fact, it is the opposite. Gil has a 75th percentile average exit velocity of 87.7 MPH. He also has a 93rd percentile hard hit rate of just 29.9% and a 64th percentile 6.6% barrel rate. Any way you slice it, Luis Gil is for real.

I briefly discussed Luis Gil’s show stopping fastball velocity, but let me tell you just how nasty he is. Gil throws his 4 Seam Fastball 55.8% of the time and partly thanks to the aforementioned velocity, it has been a booming success. The pitch has an xBA of .181, a .235 wOBA, and a 30.5% whiff rate. Headlining his tertiary offerings is a changeup, a pitch he throws 26.6% of the time. Somehow, this pitch has arguably been better than his fastball. The pitch has a .185 xBA, a .215 wOBA, and a 26.1% whiff rate. He throws something of a turbo change, sitting just over 91 MPH and touching 94-95. The pitch also has exception arm side run and downward break. Speaking of downward break, lets talk Luis Gil’s slider. He throws his slider just over 17% of the time and it is absolutely nasty. The pitch has an xBA of .178, a wOBA of .213, and a 36.7% whiff rate. The pitch also has a ridiculous -4.4 inches of vertical movement vs avg, which is one of the best marks in baseball. The pitch is somewhat limited though because he throws it almost exclusively to right handed hitters. You could make a legitimate argument that his world renowned fastball, is actually his worst pitch and yet, it is still one of the best in the game.

Most pitchers have peaks and valleys but so far for Luis, it has only been Gils.

Sources

Baseball Reference

Baseball Savant

Fangraphs

MLB.com

MLB Film Room