Brendon Little is a 29-year-old, left-handed reliever. The Jays picked him up from the Cubs in November 2023. When we picked him up, he had less than an inning of major league experience. The Jays liked that got ground balls. Lots of ground balls, thinking that would be a nice combination with their good infield defense. He still has an option year left.
He threw 45.2 innings in 2024, with a 18.7% strikeout rate. In 2025, he threw 68.1 innings and had a 30.8% strikeout rate. Unfortunately, the walk rate also increased substantially, from 9.8% to 15.3%.
Little had a 70.9% ground ball rate in 2024, dropping to 59.0% in 2025 (still very high).
There are a few great stats from last season:
- Whiff rate 100th percentile.
- Strikeout rate 92nd percentile.
- Ground ball rate 97th percentile.
- Barrel rate 80th percentile.
But then there was some bad stats:
- Walk rate 1st percentile.
- Hard hit rate 2nd percentile.
And, as we know, he had a great first half of the season (2.03 ERA, .177/.305/.234, in 44.1) than the second half (4.88, .230/.355/.345 in 24 innings). And, of course, the playoffs didn’t go well for him. He allowed two home runs during the regular season and two home runs in the playoffs.
Brendon was part of a story about the Jays in the Athletic this morning (nice timing). In it, he says that he warmed up too often and too vigorously during games last year, and tired himself out. He mentions that he threw in the pen three times, as well as throwing two other times, before coming into the playoff game, where he gave up the home run to Cal Raleigh.
He also said that he is going to warm up at “80%” before coming into games and “70%” before games, feeling that he tired himself out as the season went on.
And, he also said that he is adding a couple of pitches, a slider and a ‘tweaked’ four-seam fastball, to give him more pitches he can throw in the zone.
Last year he threw three pitches: a knuckle curve (46% of the time), sinker (45.6%) and an occasion cutter (7.8%).
Being a two-pitch pitcher worked for the first half of the season, but batters figured out that he tended to throw the knuckle curve below the strike zone most of the time. Once they realized they didn’t have to chase it, it wasn’t as effective (surprising, isn’t it).
The question is ‘Will he be a high-leverage reliever again this year?’
Since he and Mason Fluharty are the only lefty relievers who are on the 40-man (though Eric Lauer may well be a reliever this year), odds are pretty good that Little will be a high-leverage guy again.
Steamer figured Little will pitch in 54 games, with a 3.41 ERA (and 10 holds, he had team leading 30 last year).