Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced to reporters, including Lindsey Adler of The Athletic, that right-hander Luis Gil will undergo Tommy John surgery. The procedure is set to take place this Tuesday, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.
This is obviously very disappointing news for both Gil and the team. For Gil personally, the 23-year-old was starting to make his way into the Yankees’ plans, making six starts last year and one this year. Last year, he fared very well over those starts for the club, logging a 3.07 ERA with a 29.5% strikeout rate, though a concerning 14.7% walk rate. Still, for a depth starter, that’s more than acceptable. He’d been struggling so far this year, with a 7.89 ERA over six Triple-A starts, though he was still racking up strikeouts at a 30.1% pace.
Gil is in his final option year, meaning he will be out of options next year. Therefore, once he’s made his way back from this surgery, he won’t be able to be sent to the minors without first being exposed to waivers. Gil was in the minors when injured and won’t accrue service time while rehabbing from the injury. However, he will still occupy a spot on the 40-man roster. Should the Yankees have need to add someone else to the roster in the future, they could open up a spot by moving Gil to the MLB 60-day injured list. However, doing so would entitle Gil to MLB pay and service time for the remainder of the year. He came into this season with 33 days of service time and added just a single day to that when making a spot start earlier this year.
For the team, they are now without their sixth starter. They have enjoyed remarkable health with the front five members of their rotation, as Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery, Nestor Cortes Jr., Jameson Taillon and Luis Severino have made all of the club’s starts, outside of that single spot start from Gil. An entire rotation staying healthy for a full season is essentially unheard of, meaning the Yanks will surely need to use another depth starter at some point. Even if they are remarkably healthy, the schedule will occasionally require a fresh arm. For instance, last night’s game was postponed and will be made up as part of a doubleheader tomorrow. That means the Yankees are going to be playing ten games in the next nine days. Assuming the club doesn’t want to have any of their front five pitching on short rest at this stage of the season, they will need a spot start from somewhere.
Other options on the 40-man roster include Deivi Garcia, JP Sears and Luis Medina. Medina is unlikely to get serious consideration, as he’s in Double-A and has an ERA of 5.00 at the moment, having walked 17.9% of batters faced on the year so far. Garcia has eight MLB starts under his belt from 2020 and 2021, but has a whopping 9.17 ERA in Triple-A this year, with his strikeouts down to 16.5% and his walks up to 15.4%. Sears could be a legitimate option, with his 0.53 ERA in Triple-A so far, though in a small sample of just 17 innings. Looking to the active roster, Clarke Schmidt could perhaps transition from the bullpen to the rotation. He’s been working as a long man this year, logging 11 innings in five appearances with a 0.82 ERA.
at this point they might as well give TJS to every pitcher as a prospect just to get one out of the way
There are some high school coach’s that do suggest it.
Dumb idea because TJS is not like the chicken pox, having the surgery doesn’t mean you won’t need it again later on.
Eovaldi had his first TJS at Age 17 and his second TJS at Age 26.
“As a get it over with early idea.” “Your gonna end up needing the surgery at some point why not do it now, that way by the time your approaching the Majors it will be fully healed.” Is how they sell it.
Plus it’s hard to sell a prospect to have an operation they don’t need health wise yet, but if you can open the idea that it could benefit them before they really hit the hard road for ball. Little easier but it doesn’t happen often those coach’s and within a few players they get found out.
Of course when a pitcher needs a second TJ surgery their career is considered over. Getting TJ before needing it is just throwing away half of your lifetime bullets.
Doesn’t the doctor’s oath prevent them from operating on an uninjured arm?
tjs isn’t something you do as preventative maintenance like changing spark plugs after x miles. tjs is still a surgery and all surgeries have risks albeit some higher than others and things can go sideways in any surgery. the doc could be having an off day, the surgical team could of missed something, and many other things.
Please add Gil to 60 day DL and add a young arm to the 40 man roster!!! Let’s find out if Wesneski or Waldichuk is ready to help at the major league level.
they’ll probably do what most teams do and just keep him in AAA. im shocked the union didnt address this loophole in the CBA.
AAA has nothing to do with his current spot on the 40 man. They will definitely move him to the 60 day later this week.
It has to do w whether he accrues service time — as the article calls out moving him to the 60 man would start his clock again — it wouldn’t last him a year of control but it would most assuredly make him a super 2 guy
They might still do it — the roster spot likely would be worth the extra year of arb but it’s not a foregone conclusion
@Mickey777- you read my mine. I would go with the lefty starter Ken Waldichuk lst. Let’s see what we got at least in AAA.
Unfortunate. Hopefully the surgery goes well; it usually does. He’s only 23 and should be back by August next year. He’s likely more a high-leverage reliever than starter.
Sad.
Why does Gil not have another option year? He’s only appeared this season and last.
I noticed that too. Doesn’t make sense. Even last year, when Gil pitched in the majors, he was called up under the COVID rules. Even Domingo German has an option year left. How can Gil have burned through all of his?
I’m sorry to hear about Gil. Time for Schmidt or Medina to step up and finally see what the kids can do. Not sure why he’s out of options already. I think Green will be a free agent as well this off-season.
“A player who is on the 40-man roster but does not open the season on the 26-man roster or the injured list must be optioned to the Minor Leagues. Once an optioned player has spent at least 20 days in the Minors in a given season, he loses one of his options.”
If hes on the 40 man and spends most of the season in the minors, it counts against the options… In other words when gil was added to the 40 man in Nov 2019 that’s when he began having to have an option year used for any season in which he spent 20+ days in the minors (or in that year the alt site). Alternatively, if he spent all of 2022 in the majors (or at least less than 20 days in the minors) he would have preserved the option year.
Rotation depth isn’t as dire as described; Schmidt is a valid option, German is ramping up & should get a minor assignment in the coming days and there’s still the usual mid season acquisition — Castillo?
Who Is Now The Best 6th Starter Option,After What Just Happened To Luis Gil?
What Would You Offer Oakland,If You Wanted To Make A Trade With Them For Frankie Montas,Right Now,Since They Are Not Seeking That Much For Him?
Honestly, Oak would still want too much from Nay for Montas. Oakland has typically asked more from NY, for whatever reason, and Montas isn’t going to come that cheap anyway. Oakland has the luxury of sitting and waiting it out with him.
I think NY’s best option is to move Schmidt up if they’re looking for another rotation arm to slot in. Schmidt demonstrated some really adept pitching last season and had some success in the majors this year.
King can always be moved into the fifth SP role. Krook, acquired from Tampa Bay, is still at AAA and having success there too.
Between the lockout and abbreviated spring training, 2022 may be known as the year of the injured pitcher. Wherever you stand on the labor dispute, bum arms appear to be an unintended consequence.
Crappy news. Kid seemed like he was going to be a stud in pinstripes. Get well soon!
I think (and hope) Gil will be fine in 14+/- months… but in the meantime, the Pads have arms. Is there an amicable deal to be made? I want an OFer but we may not match up well…
Joey Gallo free to a good home.
Still not worth it. Even if the Yankees are paying his salary.
Gwynning: Not sue what you guys would need in terms of OF, but Gallo would be the most readily available. Then there is Florial, which the Yankees have not utilized at all, even though the parish is there. Gallo is….a struggle to watch.
Voit for Gallo then? Lol
Lolol…. Oh, man. No way, my friend, I had enough of the water bottle showers after his HRs… I like Gallo – he’s a good dude, a humble guy, a guy easy to root for, but frustrating to watch at the plate. His worst zone is middle-middle pitches…lol.
From my first response, “parish?” No idea how that happened. Should’ve read, “potential” in reference to Florial. Sorry, fat fingers.
Give you Hicks for free. Actually, we will take up a collection (probably enough to pay Hosmer’s remaining contract) to take Hicks. He’s just embarrassing. At least Gallo tries.
TJ surgery with only 33-1/3 innings of MLB under his belt? I don’t know if that’s sad or pathetic.
Walker Buehler had TJ in college. Lucas Giolito had TJ in high school. They seem to have done well.
Too bad for Gil, but he has a lot of road in front of him so he should be fine. The Yankees have five starters in AAA in Waldichuk, Garcia, Krook, JP Sears, and Hayden Wesneski, all of whom can help on the MLB level. Most interested in the two W’s. Also in there is Banuelos, whom the Yankees brought back from Asia after he picked up a couple ticks on his fastball and added an improved breaking pitch since he was last in the majors post some injuries. Any of these guys can either help as a starter or in the pen to fill in for Green. They’re covered.
Is Shelby Miller still with the Yankees org.?
Yes, Miller is. The Yankees have been using him as a reliever. He’s been effective in that role, for whatever it’s worth.
Good call, Joe. I could see them bringing him up because of his big league experience. Besides him, they have several arms in the minors already on the 40-man, and all of them were outperforming Gil.
Yeah Fink, I’d like to see him or Man Ban get a shot. No need to really worry about the 40 man. Move Gil to the 60 day IL and add one of these two guys. If it doesn’t work out, release which ever one gets the call.
Man Ban, Shelby Miller, Danny Salazar lot’s of low risk high reward options
Yeah, forgot about Salazar too. Good call, he may be worth the shot depending on how he’s throwing.
I thought Yankee fans might find this interesting.
Gary Sanchez has only two more at-bats than Carlos Correa. Gary has two more home runs, six more doubles, five more RBI, one more stolen base, and a higher OPS, OPS+ and wRC+ than Correa. Good for him.
That’s awesome for Gary! It’s either Gary has really done some excellent work, or Correa is really struggling when not cheating, err, I mean, I’m Houston.
It’s mostly that Correa hasn’t been mashing. He has a .393 SLG to Gary’s .459 SLG. But Gary’s 123 wRC+ is his best since 2017, so it’s a bit of both.
BTW, I think it was a foolish choice on Donaldson’s part to needle Anderson about his Jackie Robinson quote in S.I. Now MLB is “investigating,” which could lead to a suspension. I hope it doesn’t also disrupt the Yanks’ clubhouse chemistry. Both Judge and Stanton have Black ancestry, and Boone has two Black sons by adoption. Awkward. Boone needs to get all parties together to air this out.
I had to laugh, though, at Josh’s attempt to explain in his garbled jockspeak. “My meaning of that is not in any term trying to be racist, by any fact of the matter.”
Reminds me of Robert Redford in “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” when he hears his buddy’s dad has died: “I am much shocked to hear of his untimely domain.”
Haha! Yeah, man, I wasn’t sure why they were all over him so much. But, I don’t get what he said to make Anderson so mad (I haven’t read/heard the content of what he said yet). I’ll have to watch the follow-up to the game to see that explanation. That’s hilarious, man. I hope by now they know Donaldson well enough to know what he did/didn’t mean by that and it doesn’t disrupt their team. If it did that would be terrible, but they both (Judge & Stanton) seem really, really level-headed and able to detach emotionally.
I guess time will tell. Oftentimes instigators like Josh don’t mean anything by their jabbing, but the flip side is they also jab inappropriately and don’t recognize the difference, unfortunately.
I did notice how Grandal was up in Josh’s face and backed up about 25 steps when Stanton & Judge came over. He flat disappeared, man.
Fink, I did research that, and yeah, I agree, it was silly of JD. I don’t believe it was a race-based insult, however. I truly believe JD’s version that he was making fun of Anderson for comparing himself to Jackie.
It’s analogous to Donaldson saying he thinks he’s like Joe D, or Mantle – of course every time he doesn’t hit a HR everyone & his grandmother is going to say, “Nice hit, Mick!”
But, again, foolish? Yes, it was. Hopefully the team stays cohesive, it doesn’t amount to anything, & he learns a valuable lesson from this. They absolutely don’t need this type of distraction though.
Exactly. He should’ve known how that might’ve been interpreted and the awkward position it could put his teammates and Boone in, having to defend him, even if they believe his explanation. Just needlessly dumb. Needle the guy if you think it’ll throw him off his game, but be smarter about it. He should know how the press loves a shitstorm, so he should’ve known they’d pile on for clicks.
We have very recent evidence of that — the way Nestor felt obliged to scour his Twitter feed after some jerk dredged up tweets when he used the N-word back when he was teenager. Anybody reading the tweets could tell there was absolutely no pejorative implication in his use of the word. He was a kid trying to sound hip and using it exactly the way black rappers use it. Complete BS.
MLB is obviously so sensitive about race because after allowing one black player passing for white and two openly black brothers to play in the league in the 1800’s, they segregated the league completely until 1947. Donaldson should’ve noticed that and adjusted his mockery accordingly. Better still, let your game do your talking for you. Mocking the guy and then striking out is less effective than keeping your mouth shut and drilling a double.
Okay here’s my two cents (sorry, I hit the Derby Tri and have a lot more cents now) I think it was absolutely foolish and inappropriate HOWEVER I believe Donaldson’s explanation that he had been calling TA that for years and I’d be really interested in knowing if TA had ever told him to stop saying it. If he never did tell him to stop, and if he smiled or laughed when Donaldson said it in the past, then shame on TA for allowing it this long.
That’s always been a pet peeve of mine, people who get angry about something that is repeatedly said or done and yet they never make an attempt to put a stop to it and then all of a sudden one day it becomes a big issue. That’s almost like entrapment, ya know?
I guess we’ll find out if Anderson laughed about it before. If he did, you have a point. If not, then it’s understandable that he might’ve tried to blow it off and said nothing until it finally got to be too much to ignore. People get pushed until they reach the limit of their patience or stoicism. Happens all the time.
I agree, but when you intentionally or unintentionally mislead someone into thinking it’s okay, it’s not fair to then suddenly lash out.
TA doesn’t strike me as someone who would be too bashful to speak up if he’s being repeatedly insulted. But again, this is all contingent on whether or not Donaldson is being truthful about calling TA that for the past few years.