The Rangers and free-agent righty Zack Littell are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Kiley McDaniel of ESPN. The CAA client will be invited to Major League camp with Texas this spring.
Littell has appeared in parts of five big league seasons, all with either the Twins or Giants. The 27-year-old has had something of a rollercoaster career, with wild year-to-year swings in his ERA. He’s twice posted a sub-3.00 mark, however, most recently with the 2021 Giants, for whom he logged a 2.92 earned run average with a 25% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate and 46.9% ground-ball rate while averaging 95 mph on his heater.
Unfortunately, Littell wasn’t able to replicate that success in 2022. He logged 44 1/3 innings out of the Giants’ bullpen but was tagged for a 5.08 ERA with noticeable drops in strikeout rate (20.5%) and fastball velocity (94.4 mph).
Littell’s struggles boiled over into a late-season incident where he had some words for manager Gabe Kapler upon being pulled from a relief appearance, which prompted a heated conversation between the two in the dugout tunnel shortly thereafter. Littell apologized for the behavior, noting that he was more frustrated with himself for his performance than anything else. Nonetheless, that proved his final game with the Giants, who optioned him to Triple-A the next day and outrighted him off the 40-man roster following the season. He elected to become a minor league free agent.
All in all, Littell has pitched 169 2/3 innings in the Majors with a 4.08 ERA, 21% strikeout rate, 8.3% walk rate and 42.8% ground-ball rate. He has 3.067 years of Major League service time, so if the Rangers select his contract to the big league roster at any point, he’ll be controllable through at least the 2025 season (and, depending on the timing of that promotion, perhaps through the 2026 campaign). He’d need to find the consistency that has eluded him to this point in his career for those additional years of control to prominently come into play, but Littell has shown at multiple points in the past that he has the potential to be a quality bullpen arm.
Good depth signing – some will pan out well and most won’t
Good pick up!
He tends to be good in odd years and awful in even years. He is just like Semien.
Maybe you should check out Semiens numbers towards the end. He only had a couple rough months at the beginning. Dude had a good year
I consider those numbers bad because he was hardly above average that season. Sure, you can say the first few months should have been a fluke and the last few weren’t, but a season is 162 games. Both time frames add together to give you his full season numbers. Additionally, unless he changed something physically or mechanically the last few months (which I doubt), that doesn’t really bring much hope for future even years. I am literally only excited because of his 2019 and 2021 seasons. It could have to do with short spring training in 2020 and 2022, but I still consider his 108 OPS+ to be bad for a second baseman who is making 25 MM for the next 6 seasons from ages 32-37.
There’s a difference between being “bad” and “overpaid.”
You’re saying Semien was bad, but also acknowledging that he was above league-average offensively. For a second baseman, that kind of offense is especially valuable.
Is that production worth the high salary? Maybe, maybe not. Is that production remotely bad? No way.
Relatively speaking (also consider 2018 and 2020 in particular)
Bad relative to his better seasons, or bad relative to his salary?
Better seasons
Just don’t yell at your manager when he pulls you from a game and you should be allright.
Watching this guy; all I can say is I’m very happy he’s no longer a Giant. Hopefully he gets his head and arm right but I’d bet against that.
He had a “noticeable drop” in his fastball velocity – from 95 mph to 94.4. Thanks Steve for noticing that!
didn’t like him before it was cool. Best of luck. I don’t like kapler and kapler doesn’t like littel.
Kap has to go
Maybe Maddux helps him.
He has had some success at ML level with Giants. Can not hurt to see if he can help Rangers.
This seems like a guy the Os would normally target. Low risk, high reward. They just acquired Darwinzon Hernandez from the Sox of course, but these two pitchers are similar in a number of ways including the mixed results at the MLB level thus far.
I don’t think the Rangers gain a lot with this signing, probably just a Littell.
Kapler made a small man move, and the Giants backed it. Bochy would have handled it with class, got the guy straighten out, and moved on. Littell would then (like most players) respect the guy for the rest of his life. I hope Kapler is gone after the season ends.
Did you see how it went down? Immediately after the outburst, Kapler calmly lead Littell into the clubhouse to chat about it privately. Didn’t blow up in his face on camera, and went right back to managing the game.
Littell was already on the bubble for months of declining performance. The writing was also on the all that he was likely a goner after the season, like other 2021-22 bullpen regulars like Dominic Leone, Jarlin Garcia, and Jose Alvarez.
From the limited perspective of a fan who isn’t in the clubhouse and didn’t hear what Kapler said behind closed doors, I think Kapler handled it well and the Giants were justified in sending him down for the season’s remaining weeks.
#cainer18 – Yeah one of the few examples of Kapler actually being focused on his job and doing it well. The Littell situation was handled appropriately imo.
Good thing there wasn’t something that happened completely unrelated to baseball, on the other side of the country, to distract Kapler from his focus on baseball that day.
#LLGiants I somewhat agree with you
Nope. Littell disrespected the team in a moment of frustration and paid the price. The cherry on top of some performance issues. The Giants handled it quietly and efficiently.
Wish the guy all the best. He was very good in 21. Hope he bounces back.
C-YA Zack! Good luck giving Bochy that kind of attitude!
He was good, and had the right to be mad at Kapler. At the time I believe he had the most appearances in all of baseball and deserved to get out of that inning.