Yankees' Michael Fulmer signing tells you all you need to know about Luis Gil

The New York Yankees lost reliever Fernando Cruz and his disappearing splitter/dying fastball to the 15-Day Injured List on Wednesday, mere hours after he insisted he was healthy and was just wingin' 91 MPH heaters middle-middle these days because he felt like it.

While the Yankees may eventually be able to shift their overflow starters into the bullpen and hand the middle innings to Will Warren, Ryan Weathers, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil, Wednesday is still not that day. New York will instead supplement their Big Three with Justin Topa and Michael Fulmer, the 2017 Rookie of the Year who they just signed out of absolutely nowhere. He'll join the big club immediately.

Sure. Why not?

Yankees had very few options except Michael Fulmer for bullpen ... but they did have one

Out of the potential sliding starters, Warren wasn't an option to move immediately; he's become an "essential" piece of a threadbare rotation, one that hopes to get Max Fried back on Saturday. Weathers isn't, either; he's freshly on the Injured List himself dealing with a low-grade flexor strain. Schmidt will start a rehab assignment soon, the Yankees hope.

But Luis Gil was already on one of those, then returned to Triple-A to become a bullpen option. So far, he's getting outs, but other than that, nothing really looks terribly different about him. He's allowed four hits and three walks in 6 2/3 shutout innings across four outings, whiffing eight. He's focused quite exclusively on the heater, riding it up in the zone at 97+. Still, it doesn't have an exceptional shape. It doesn't have any new characteristics. He's still just ... Gil, but in the bullpen, fighting his command and mechanics and hoping to make it work.

You could sell me on this move having no impact on Gil's chances of making a strong big-league impression this September and October if Fulmer was an arm the Yankees knew well, one they had been cultivating all along. But he's not. He's a complete rando. He was an Angel in mid-August, and they plucked him off the waiver wire in a desperate scramble and vaulted him right to the big-league roster. He'll probably face the Red Sox in a rivalry four-gamer this weekend. Why? Who else is there? Not Gil, apparently.

The Yankees had very few alternative options after placing Cruz on the shelf, and Fulmer's stay may be extremely temporary. But it's very telling that they had no interest in trying the in-house option a few weeks earlier than anticipated, and that their emergency scrambling resulted in a desperate waiver-wire scour instead of a show of faith.

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