Brendon Little is a 28-year-old left-handed reliever the Jays picked up from the Cubs for cash in November of 2023. He was the Cubs’ first-round draft pick in 2017 (the pick before the Jays grabbed Nate Pearson, who is now a Cub).
Before last season, Little had faced six batters in the majors, but the Jays called him up on April 25th last year, and he got into 49 games with a 3.74 ERA. In 45.2 innings, he gave up 41 hits, 7 home runs, 19 walks and 36 strikeouts.
Batters hit .238/.318/.390 against him. He was much better vs. LHH (.202/.280/.238) than RHH (.273/.354/.534). I’m sure he wishes we could go back to the days of the LOOGY. To show how things have changed for lefties out of the pen, Little faced 100 right-handers and 93 left-handers. I’m still not a fan of the three-batter rule.
Baseball Savant tells us that Brendon threw three pitches:
- Sinker: 57%.
- Knuckle Curve: 31.8%.
- Cutter: 11.2%.
Batters had a .287 batting average against the Sinker but a .158 average against the Knuckle Curve.
John used him when the team was behind, especially early in the season. The Jays were 19-30 in games he pitched. But he started to get into more of a set-up role late in the season (likely due to the bullpen’s lack of good performance). He had seven holds and a save.
His control had been an issue in the past but he walked 7.09% of batters last year (still more than you’d like but better than he’s done in the minors). He stuck out 18.7%.
He’s an extreme ground ball pitcher, getting 70.9% ground balls last year. Having Andrés Giménez at second base should help him out.
What happens this year? He has a little competition for the lefty in the pen from Josh Walker, who is also on the 40-man (as well as Easton Lucas and Adam Macko), and they have a couple of guys signed to minor league contracts with invites to spring training: Richard Lovelady and Eric Lauer. But it looks like the job is his to lose going into spring training.
He has two option years left, so he could make the Toronto-Buffalo drive some this year.
Steamer thinks he has the job. They see him pitching in 58 games, 58 innings with a 3.60 ERA.