Nationals To Sign Zack Littell

Right-hander Zack Littell is in agreement with the Nationals on a contract, according to a report from Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan of ESPN. Andy Kostka of The Baltimore Banner adds that the deal is pending a physical, while Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports it’s a major league deal. Kostka adds that it’s a one-year pact that includes a mutual option for 2027. Washington will need to open a 40-man roster spot for the CAA Sports client. The guarantee on Littell’s deal is not yet known.

Littell, 30, is a veteran of eight big league seasons but spent most of that time in a bullpen role. An 11th-round pick by the Mariners in the 2013 draft, Littell made his debut back in 2018 as a member of the Twins. In the first five seasons of his MLB career, Littell posted a 4.08 ERA (104 ERA+) with lackluster peripherals in 169 2/3 innings of work. After the 2022 campaign, Littell rode the DFA and waiver claim carousel throughout the 2022-23 offseason. He eventually wound up with the Red Sox to start the season, but he made just two appearances in the majors before being once again designated for assignment. That led him to the Rays, with whom he managed to transform himself from a fringe member of the 40-man roster into a solid mid to back of the rotation arm.

Upon joining Tampa, Littell moved into a swing role for the remainder of the 2023 campaign. He posted a 3.93 ERA with a nearly matching 3.99 FIP in 87 innings split between 14 starts and 12 relief appearances. His 19.8% strikeout rate in those outings was hardly exciting, but he made up for it with pinpoint command that allowed him to post a 2.5% walk rate and an 8.2% barrel rate. That control and command style was enough to earn him a full-time rotation job headed into the Rays’ 2024 season, and he rewarded the team with a career year. In 29 starts for the Rays in 2024, Littell posted a 21.5% strikeout rate against a 4.7% walk rate while pitching to a 3.63 ERA (110 ERA+) with a 3.81 FIP. His 156 2/3 innings of work made him just one of just 71 pitchers to throw more than 150 innings that year, and only 15 of those pitchers surrendered fewer runs than Littell.

While his middling strikeout rate and a 34.0% ground ball rate stuck out as potential concerns, it was easy to see why the Rays once again had Littell penciled into the middle of their rotation come 2025. Littell remained generally effective in terms of run prevention last year as he posted a 3.81 ERA (111 ERA+) in a career-high 186 2/3 innings of work across 32 starts for the Rays and Reds. Unfortunately, those solid results were not paired with similar peripherals. A look under the hood reveals Littell’s strikeout rate plummeted to just 17.1%, while his barrel rate jumped to 9.8% as he allowed the second most homers in all of baseball last season. Perhaps some of that can be explained by Littell pitching his home games at the hitter-friendly Steinbrenner Field and Great American Ballpark, but a 4.88 FIP with a 4.40 SIERA suggested that Littell was more of a back-end starter than his results may have indicated.

That led to Littell facing a soft market this past offseason, with minimal interest in his services being reported. A reunion with the Rays once seemed to be on the table, but that connection seemed to diminish once the club brought in Steven Matz, and last month’s Nick Martinez signing was likely the final nail in the coffin for any hopes of Littell returning to Tampa. No other clubs were publicly connected to the right-hander’s services for most of the winter, though plenty of pitching-needy teams like the Braves and Athletics emerged as speculative fits.

Ultimately, the Nationals will be the team to take advantage of Littell’s soft market and bring him into the fold. In Washington, the right-hander joins a rotation deep in interesting options but lacking in much stability. The club signed 37-year-old innings eater Miles Mikolas last month, so Littell won’t be alone in terms of veterance presence in the Nats rotation. With that being said, Mikolas has a 4.98 ERA over the past three seasons and offers little more than reliable, unspectacular innings. Littell can take on plenty of innings himself, but his previous work with the Rays indicates that there could be a bit more upside in this signing than there was with the Mikolas deal for the Nationals.

D.C. is unlikely to compete for a playoff start this year as they reboot their efforts to rebuild under newly-minted president of baseball operations Paul Toboni, but that could allow Littell to be moved to a contender at the deadline if he’s pitching well, as was the case when he was dealt from Tampa to Cincinnati last season. In the meantime, he’ll join Mikolas in providing stability in what’s suddenly become a crowded rotation mix for Toboni and new manager Blake Butera. Foster Griffin seems likely to join the duo in the rotation after signing with the club out of Japan this winter, and the last two spots in the rotation figure to go to some combination of Cade Cavalli, Brad Lord, Josiah Gray, Jake Irvin, and Mitchell Parker.