Gary Gill Hill Is Rays' Latest Pitching Find

Image credit: (Photo by Brian Westerholt/Four Seam Images)

From the moment he takes the mound, Gary Gill Hill commands your attention.

At 6-foot-2 and roughly 180 pounds, his body has both present strength and room for even more as he prepares to exit his teenage years. His movements are fluid and athletic, with an ease of operation that belies his whip-quick arm.

In warmups, the righthander shows an array of pitches designed to disarm hitters on both sides of the plate. His two-seamer and cutter get grounders with ease, while his four-seamer can be spotted up in the zone for swings and misses.

The fastballs are backed with a changeup which features separation and drop, and a developing breaking pitch with slider shape and curveball velocity.

He has the ingredients. Now, it’s time to cook.

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The Rays selected Gill Hill in the sixth round of the 2022 draft, out of high school in New York, and pried him from a commitment to Fairleigh Dickinson with a bonus in the mid six-figures.

He didn’t pitch in his draft year, then spent 2023 mostly in the Florida Complex League before a late-season cameo at Low-A Charleston until a round of biceps tendinitis popped up.

Now, back at Charleston after an offseason to recover, Gill Hill has re-emerged with roughly 20 pounds of good weight as well as the corresponding strength boost.

This season, he’s racked up 34 strikeouts over his first 30 innings with the RiverDogs. He’s allowed just 22 hits, walked 10 and is getting grounders at a rate of nearly 65%.

Gill Hill’s projectable frame was part of what drew the interest of pro teams, and over the offseason he used a bit of home cooking to begin helping those premonitions become reality.

“I learned (to cook) myself when I got to pro ball,” Gill Hill said, noting that medium rare steak is one of his specialties. “I just learned how to cook.”

After all that steak—as well as some vegetables and carbs—Gill Hill’s fastball features a bit more sizzle. A year ago, his four-seamer topped out at 93 mph. This season, the pitch averages 94 mph and has already peaked at 98 mph.

Despite the extra heat, Gill Hill does not look like a pitcher airing it out on every pitch. The most impressive part of his outing, in fact, might have been the way he saved some of his best bolts for last.

Over the first few innings, the righthander’s fastball comfortably parked in the mid 90s and touched 97 mph. Later in the game, the velocity on his entire repertoire dropped a couple of ticks. It would have been understandable if the trend continued until his final pitch. This was just the second time he’d pitched a full six innings or thrown more than 80 pitches in his pro career.

Still, with the end of his night in the offing, he began to light up the radar gun once more. His final hitter featured five fastballs of 94 mph or hotter, a threshold he hadn’t reached since a couple of innings prior.

When his day was done, Gill Hill had spun six innings of four-hit, one-run ball with eight strikeouts and no walks. The strikeout total matched a career high, and the outing was his first of 2024 without issuing a walk.

Another benefit of adding strength in the offseason has been more consistent mechanics. The Rays noticed that Gill Hill’s arm slot had dropped over the course of last season, costing his arsenal some crispness in the process. Once he got it back to where it needed to be, the results followed.

Bringing my arm slot back up changed a lot of things,” Gill Hill said. “It (helped me) be able to be more consistent in the zone and more consistent throwing my pitches.”

Keeping his arm slot higher allows Gill Hill’s four-seam fastball to carry through the zone and serve as a third complement to his two-seamer and cutter.

“He just needs to be consistent with his arm slot,” Charleston pitching coach Levi Romero said, “because he’s shown that when it’s consistent he has really good stuff. The numbers and shapes are really good when he’s in a good spot with his arm slot.”

Besides the strength and the re-raised arm slot, Gill Hill has also made a few tweaks to his pitch mix.

His breaking ball now is more of a curveball, which gives him a slower pitch to go with his cutter and gives righthanders two different breaking balls to consider. The cutter itself is a newer option, and was introduced into Gill Hill’s mix this past offseason.

“He has both breaking pitches—the cutter and the curveball, and I think the cutter is going to be a plus pitch in the future,” said Romero, who also noted that Gill Hill’s curveball can be used now as an effective strike-stealer and maybe one day as a finisher. “I think now (the cutter) is average, but very soon it’s going to be a great weapon against lefties and also to righties … that’s going to be the out pitch at some point.”

In his second full season as a pro, Gill Hill is stronger and healthier, and has shown the ability to quickly incorporate new pitches into his mix. All those variables—plus the athleticism that comes from playing basketball and soccer growing up—have led to big gains and an extremely bright future.