Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Will Gil Hurt You Down the Stretch?

For the most part, I tend to be very conservative when ranking rookies and unproven players compared to many analysts. This goes for both pre-draft and my ROS rankings. I reason that most of them have not endured the grind of a full MLB season. This especially goes for pitchers, given how they are handled nowadays. Sometimes it works in my favor, sometimes it does not, and sometimes it is a combination of the two. I think we are seeing this play out with Luis Gil.

Gil has been one of the pleasant surprises of the 2024 season. He has filled in admirably for fantasy managers who grabbed him at the tail end of drafts or on the waiver wire. In May, Gil won all six of his starts while posting a 0.70 ERA, 0.72 WHIP, and 44 strikeouts. Gil enters the weekend as a top-25 fantasy starting pitcher for the season and is a lock to beat my preseason projection for him. But he has also arguably been the worst fantasy pitcher in the league over his last three starts. In that stretch, he is 0-3 with a 14.90 ERA and a total of six strikeouts. I am worried that this rough patch may be more than just a simple bump in the road.

Over the past four seasons, Gil has only thrown a total of 144 innings across the Majors and Minors. His velocity has more or less remained intact, which is encouraging. However, Gil could be beginning to wear down as he approaches a single-season high in innings pitched. Given his historical lack of innings, the Yankees may begin to limit his workload going forward. And Gil is not the only starting pitcher who may face a similar fate in the coming weeks. Garrett Crochet is one of the most prominent pitchers who may be in the same boat.

Since the Chicago White Sox drafted Crochet in 2020, he had logged a total of 85.2 innings before this year. He has already pitched 101.1 innings this season. Crochet has not experienced a downturn in production as Gil has. But Chicago has no shot at a playoff berth. That means there is little incentive for the White Sox to push him. The team has already stated they have a plan for Crochet, so we may see him limited or skipped on occasion. Even a potential trade does not figure to add too many additional innings to Crochet’s workload. The days of a 2008 CC Sabathia situation where a team acquires a pitcher and runs him into the ground have long since gone by the wayside. And it definitely will not happen with a 25-year-old who is still under contract for another two years.

I have both Gil and Crochet ranked considerably lower in my ROS rankings than their year-to-date production would suggest. Now is the time to start formulating a backup plan. This is where ROS rankings can be a bit tricky and not as a “one size fits all” approach. For example, I have Crochet ranked ahead of Max Scherzer. But if I needed innings and wins, I might prefer the veteran. Scherzer should be fully stretched out following the All-Star break. That means he is much more likely to make a dozen or so starts in the second half than Crochet is.

Rest of Season Fantasy Baseball Rankings