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.
The Yankees debated carrying Gil on the roster to use him out of the bullpen in a piggyback role, but instead will take an extra reliever, 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 a fifth starter — April 11 at the latest.
For most of the spring, Gil was slow to regain the dominant stuff that he flashed in the first half of his 2024 AL Rookie of the Year season. 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.
Instead, 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, with Gil expected to join them soon after he is eligible to be called up (as early as April 9).
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.