Pittsburgh Pirates Add Former Los Angeles Dodgers Reliever

It's the time of the baseball season where the teams that are in contention start to ramp things up as they push towards October, and the teams that are out of it start adding flier pieces that could be of use to their roster the following year. The Pittsburgh Pirates are in the latter camp this season, holding a 49-66 record and sitting 21.5 games back of the first-place Milwaukee Brewers.

This week, the Pirates added former Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Jack Little off the waiver wire, after he was designated for assignment on Monday. The right-hander made two appearances for the Dodgers this season, totaling three innings of work, four hits and a walk allowed, two earned runs, and two strikeouts.

He also started a benches clearing brawl in his MLB debut.

In his second inning of work during that debut, he hit Fernando Tatís Jr. in a game LA was trailing 5-0. It was the seventh hit batter in the series, and even the managers, Dave Roberts and Mike Shildt, got into it. It was certainly a memorable debut for Little.

Little made one more appearance a few weeks later and tossed a clean, scoreless inning against the Houston Astros, striking out one.

In his time in the minor leagues this season, the 27-year-old right-hander from Stanford made 26 appearances, earned 13 saves, and held a 4.64 ERA (4.84 FIP) across 42 2/3 innings. His strikeout rate sat at 21.1%, while his walk rate was at 10.3%, with both rates trending in the wrong direction compared to last year.

In 2024 he was striking out 26% of the hitters he faced and walking just 7.1%, which gave him a much more manageable 18.8% K-BB. The Pirates have a league average bullpen on the year, though they also just shipped out closer David Bednar, so perhaps there can be an opening to give Little a look at some point before the end of the season.

While it's hard to make much out of a three-inning sample size, Little's Baseball Savant has plenty of positive trends, including high whiff and chase rates.

On the flip side, he has struggled mightily in the minors since his MLB debut, allowing 14 earned runs across 11 innings of work, which has led to an 11.45 ERA since the end of June. Part of the reasoning for this could be that in his last outing with Oklahoma City, Little's velocity was down over his season average by more than a tick across the board.

His fastball was sitting 92.3 (has been 94 on the year), while his slider was at 83.9 miles per hour (86.8), and his split dropped 1.4 mph as well, going from 86.8 to 85.4. Little was fifth round pick by the Dodgers back in 2019, and if Pittsburgh can help him find that velocity, he could be a piece of their bullpen mix over the rest of the season and into '26.

This is the kind of addition teams make this time of year, since it's a relatively low risk addition, with a potentially decent-sized reward. All it takes is a spot on the 40-man roster.

The Pirates have optioned him to Triple-A Indianapolis.