Power lefty Brendon Little working to bring career full circle with Blue Jays
DUNEDIN, Fla. — There are a few causes Brendon Little was floored to study he’d been traded to the Toronto Blue Jays final November.
The first was a misunderstanding of MLB’s roster guidelines. Having accrued seven years of service within the Chicago Cubs system with out being added to the membership’s 40-man roster, Little — a 27-year-old left-handed reliever — was eligible for minor-league free company this winter. So, when free company opened 5 days following the conclusion of the World Series, he assumed he was now not a part of an MLB group.
But Little’s uniform participant contract didn’t formally expire till 5:00pm that day. And at 4:00pm, he obtained a name from a Cubs govt telling him he’d been traded. His response: “Wait, aren’t I a free agent?”
Nope. You’re a Blue Jay now. Which was the opposite shock to Little’s system, contemplating what occurred in Toronto throughout his MLB debut.
It was late August, 2022, and with the Cubs set to position two pitchers on the restricted record forward of a collection at Rogers Centre — international nationals unvaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 weren’t permitted to cross the border on the time — Little was summoned north from triple-A as a alternative participant.
What a possibility. Little — Chicago’s 2017 first-round choose — had spent the higher a part of two seasons looking for himself at triple-A, his prospect sheen steadily fading as he transitioned from beginning to relieving, pursued a collection of fruitless arsenal additions, and battled management inconsistency.
A shock journey to Canada was his likelihood to indicate the Cubs he nonetheless had the potential to contribute. But any hopes of a storybook debut evaporated mere moments after Little took the mound within the second sport of that collection, inheriting Marcus Stroman’s one-run lead within the backside of the sixth.
He began 1-1 to Bo Bichette earlier than bouncing a breaking ball within the filth that, as a prolonged video evaluate confirmed, barely nicked the shortstop’s toe. Runner on first, none out.
His following pitch, a well-located sinker away from Matt Chapman, produced a swinging bunt and a mortifying second, as Little slipped whereas attempting to area it and ended up planted on the turf going through the third final analysis. Make it runners on first and second with none out.
Next pitch, Teoscar Hernandez did this:
“After each thing that happened, I was like, ‘That sucks, that sucks, that sucks,” Little says now, leaning on a railing at TD Ballpark sporting a Blue Jays uniform. “Safe to say that outing sped up on me.
“So, when they said the Jays traded for me, I was like, ‘What are they doing? Didn’t they see what happened to me?’”
Turns out, the Blue Jays see lots in Little — sufficient to swing that Eleventh-hour deal and instantly add him to the membership’s 40-man roster. It says one thing that the group went that route relatively than competing for him on the open market as a free agent 60 minutes later.
And Little supplied a glimpse of what the Blue Jays like about him Saturday, pitching a clear inning in Toronto’s Grapefruit League opener. A mid-90’s sinker that touched 97 with appreciable vertical (29 inches of drop) and horizontal (16 inches of run) motion. A spike curveball he throws so onerous — anyplace from 87-89 mph — that Baseball Savant mistakenly identifies it as a slider. And a brand new pitch: a 92-93-mph cutter he started throwing late final season.
The Blue Jays are notably inspired by that third providing, which Little added to present him a second fastball he may find for strikes and bore in on right-handed hitters hanging out over the plate (Hernandez’s opposite-field homer is an effective instance of that). It’s precisely what they might have instructed him to start out creating if he’d been a member of their group. When David Howell — Toronto’s assistant pitching coach — known as Little a number of hours after the commerce, one in all his greatest encouragements was to proceed engaged on it all through the winter.
“It seemed like they were really on board with what I was doing and how I finished the season — I was pretty excited about that,” Little says. “It really feels like the Blue Jays believe in me and what I’m doing.”
Good news: Little had already organized for an low season pitch design session at Driveline — the place Howell labored earlier than becoming a member of the Blue Jays — to proceed tweaking and bettering his cutter. Using Rapsodo knowledge and Edgertronic footage, Little refined his grip and launch of the pitch to extend its velocity and enhance its motion. What initially got here out of his hand just like the dangerous bullet slider he’d experimented with years in the past slowly morphed right into a more true, back-spinning cutter.
That design course of continued with Howell at Toronto’s participant improvement advanced in Florida, the place Little arrived in mid-January. The Blue Jays had Little throw of their pitching lab and introduced him with a radical writeup of his pitch traits and motion patterns on the mound. Using the biomechanical knowledge they gathered, the workforce went to work bettering Little’s back-leg load whereas serving to him transfer faster and extra linearly in the direction of the plate. By the time spring coaching started in mid-February, Little had already thrown a number of dwell batting practices and devised an assault plan for utilizing his new pitch combine in numerous counts.
That early begin to the 12 months helps clarify why Little was airing it out Saturday, sitting 96-mph in his first look of spring. The purpose is to remain at that velocity for your complete season, reaching again to the touch 98 when mandatory.
“With the changes to my delivery, trying to get down the mound a bit quicker, I was really happy that the velo was still there,” Little says. “Technology has come such a long way in helping profile yourself as a pitcher. Understanding where you’re putting force on the mound, whether it’s more horizontal or linear; whether you’re more pronation or supination dominant at pitch release. It’s pretty insightful. Honestly, I’m just trying to find what’s going to help me get to the big leagues.”
There’s cause to consider that may occur this 12 months with the Blue Jays. Little’s background as a starter provides him the flexibility to throw a number of innings, as he did in 60 per cent of his appearances final season. But his stuff additionally makes him helpful situationally in opposition to powerful lefties or when a groundball is required. Although he’s battled management points at occasions — he’s run an 11.9 per cent stroll fee whereas pitching to a 4.15 ERA at triple-A since 2022 — Little’s produced groundball charges in extra of 62 per cent every of the final two seasons.
Developing Tim-Mayza-with-a-cutter is the perfect end result right here, however Little clearly nonetheless has an extended approach to go. For now, the Blue Jays can leverage Little’s three remaining choice years to permit him to proceed engaged on issues at triple-Some time offering a layer of bullpen depth ought to Mayza or Genesis Cabrera get injured.
For his half, Little is keen to fill any position his new group wants. After spending the higher a part of his final seven seasons assembly useless ends as he pursued numerous pitches and approaches, he feels reinvigorated by the brand new views and methods he’s been uncovered to in a recent atmosphere. The Blue Jays might have been the final membership he imagined discovering himself with late final 12 months. But a possibility to redeem himself at Rogers Centre could be a correct manner for his winding path to return full circle.
“Hey, I’ve got brand new cleats, too — I’m not going to be slipping all over the place,” Little says with a smile. “Coming off all these years I’ve spent really trying to find myself as a pitcher — admittedly, with too much experimentation on my part — I really like the spot that I’m at now. And being on the same page with the Blue Jays, that’s comforting to know. It feels good here. It feels like a family organization, a very collaborative environment. Now, it’s just about going out and showing that I can execute this gameplan we’ve put together.”
