The Pirates announced that they have claimed right-hander Jack Little off waivers from the Dodgers and assigned him to Triple-A Indianapolis. The Dodgers designated him for assignment two days ago. The Pirates had a couple of vacancies on their 40-man roster, with this move bumping their count to 39.
Little, 27, was called up to the big leagues for the first time less than two months ago. The Dodgers selected him to their 40-man on June 19th. Since then, he’s largely been on optional assignment. His big league track record consists of just three innings over two appearances. In those, Little allowed two earned runs on four hits and one walk while striking out two. He averaged 94 miles per hour on his fastball while also throwing a splitter and a slider.
Presumably, the Bucs are more interested in his larger sample of work as a minor leaguer. He was first promoted to the Triple-A level in June of last year. Since then, he has logged 79 innings for Oklahoma City with a 4.67 earned run average. It’s perhaps important to note that the Comets play in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. While the 4.67 ERA may not be especially impressive, his 23.3% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rates are pretty close to typical big league averages.
Little still has a full slate of options and just a handful of service days, meaning he could be a cheap depth piece for the foreseeable future, if he can hang onto his roster spot. The Bucs had some open spots on that roster, so they can get a free look at him for now and see how things go in Indianapolis. They traded David Bednar and Caleb Ferguson ahead of the deadline, putting a dent in their bullpen depth, so Little backfills a bit of that.
Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin, Oncea-Imagn Images
“Pirates acquire Little”
Aside from the capital L, it sounds like every offseason and trade deadline for them.
Pirates Claim Jack?
Sparrow?
Hoist the colors!
It sounds like every waking second of Bob Nutting’s tenure as Pirates Owner. Pirates acquiring “little”, Pirates competing “little”, Pirates seeming to care “little”.
It’s time for the annual Cherington dumpster diving event brought to you by the cheapest owner in baseball
Let’s not develop the position players into major league players who can hit, instead search the waiver wire for pitchers who won’t contribute anything to a team that is near the bottom in scoring runs
He spent so Little time with the Dodgers. It’s a shame.
Cherington continues to stock Indy instead of the Pirates. No wonder Indy team is usually competitive and the Pirates are not. Makes me wonder if Cherington has partial ownership of Indy team.
Santana blew the save then lost the game in the 8th inning
The Bucs were their usual self striking out in double digits again
Gonzalez had 3 hits and Cutch had 2
Cruz pinch hit for Bart who struck out three times in his plate appearances and Cruz did what he does best
He struck out swinging
Except you missed the cancer doctor. It is not the GM or manager. It is and has been Nutting for almost 20 years. Otherwise … pretty close to right
I agree. Nutting needs to hire a competent team president and have them bring in a full staff.
Anybody who thinks that a team can even be decent without a good closer is crazy.
And the same goes if you think that any good reliever can be a good closer.
Proof of the pudding is the current version of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
former Pirate JT Brubaker was designated for assignment this afternoon by the Yankees
I would rather Cherington obtained him then Little
Thank you for your service in plunking Tati
4.6 ERA in the minors this year good lord.
Wished they would have traded Santana instead of Bednar
Santana shouldn’t be the closer, Muretta should be
Dauri I think has the attitude that is necessary but are the Pirates smart enough to see that or are they going to continue with the 8th inning setup man?
Dauri took the ball from Heaney today with 2 outs in the 5th inning
Mattson pitched just one third of an inning in the 8th, having walked 2 batters and giving up a hit
wvsteve: Santana’s just waiver wire fodder who’s been with five teams in eight years and dumped by four of them. He has no real trade value.
He’s had good two years with Pirates just not the past two he’s pitched
But he’s a 29yo journeyman who was traded on the cheap by the Dodgers, sold by the Rangers, and waived by the Braves, Twins, Mets, and Yankees.
He’s not that young and obviously has negligible trade value, which is why there were no takers at the deadline.
I never said they should sign him to a 10 year contract, but he has been good with pirates. It must be the pirates innovated and advanced coaching that helped him improve
Or he got lucky for a while pitching in a low-pressure environment with no expectations of winning.
If he had trade value, he would’ve been traded last week. The market doesn’t lie.
The Pirates kept him as a cheap replacement for Bednar as closer.
He cannot close and never had the guts for it.
Tells you how much they know.
One of the players involved in the Bednar trade, Sanchez, is now on the 60 day IL.
After only playing a few games with Bradenton.
I wonder if this is anything like when Horowitz was obtained, knowing he had an injury even before he was traded for?
Little Jack Little and Basil Fomeen!
This is the MLB in 2025; the Pirates pick up the scraps of the Dodgers.
The Pirates should pick up Brubaker who pitched well for the Yankees this year.
As this dumpster fires grows into a catastrophic blaze, the fans sit back shaking their heads but not in disgust, just frustrated with the same cycle year after year. MLB Commissioner sits on his hands and allows an ownership to abuse the fanbase for 20 years. It’s still the same old song and dance. MLPA and over half the MLB owners have demanded investigations and improvements from the Pirates brass. The commissioner still sits on his hands like there is nothing wrong with how Bob Nutting is running that franchise. Sooner that Rob Manfred retires, the better. Hopefully the next commissioner has the walnuts to stand up against greedy owners. Punish the ownership or force them to sell. Punish them with loss of draft picks and strip the Pirates of future “revenue sharing” if they don’t start putting money into the roster. There is no excuse for them to be only spending 40-60 million on the roster each year. There are clubs just as small as the Pirates who are spending double that each year. Twins, Guardians, Orioles, Brewers, Royals, Braves, and Reds are some of the smaller markets that have spent double on their roster that the Pirates have each year. Pitiful
Gotta feel for da yinzers dahn in da Burgh!
I read yesterday that Nutting isn’t going to increase payroll next year
If Manfred was a real leader, he’d force small market teams to have a minimum payroll that is at the $100 million dollar level
Cherrington is in GM club for life. Once he is fired some team will hire him as a senior advisor. He has many friends in the industry and will get some cushy job where he can just put on a tie and not be seen for 6 figures.
as long as he doesn’t return next season, I don’t care where he goes
Kelly needs to move Cruz out of the clean up in the lineup
After Reynolds hit a 2 run triple in the 8th inning last night, Cruz struck out on a pitch no where close to the plate to end the inning
with the score tied at 4, Ramirez gave up 3 runs in the 6th inning and then proceeded to walk the first two batters in the 7th including throwing a wild pitch
The Shelton clone waits until the second walk to pull Ramirez
Cruz is 0 for 3 so far with a strikeout
And Cutch is sitting again for some unknown reason