Going into the 2019 Major League Baseball season the Twins
had few question marks more glaring than what their bullpen would look like.
Fast forward to season’s end and it was among the best units in baseball. That
happened largely because of internal development, and Zack Littell was part of
that.
Acquired from the New York Yankees, Littell had pitched a
brief 20.1 innings during the 2018 season. Working as both a starter and
reliever in his debut year, he moved completely to the pen in 2019. Across 37.0
IP Littell posted a 2.68 ERA and 171 ERA+. While he wasn’t counted upon as one
of Rocco Baldelli’s top arms, he consistently got the job done.
Fast forward to 2020 and Littell seemed to quickly fall out
of favor with the big-league club. He was given just 6.1 IP this past season,
and after a disastrous debut in which he allowed three homers and four runs in
just a single inning to White Sox hitters, there wasn’t much more opportunity
from there. Ultimately Littell was DFA’d from the 40-man, and after passing
through waivers unclaimed, was assigned to the alternate site in St. Paul.
What Minnesota really has here is probably something in the
middle of the two extremes. As good as the ERA was in 2020, Littell still owned
a 3.62 FIP and whiffed just 7.8 per nine while allowing 2.2 free passes per
nine. He saw nearly a 2 mph jump on his fastball velocity once moving to the
pen full time, and the 12.8% swinging strike rate in 2019 was nearly double the
mark set the year before. Without pitching in too many high leverage situations
though, it was on the basis of a relatively untested arm.
Given the emergence of guys like Tyler Duffey and Caleb
Thielbar, opportunities dwindled for someone on the fringe. Minnesota tabbed
Matt Wisler as a worthy project right away during the 2019 offseason however,
and Littell feels like someone worth investing in this time around. Should the
Twins not add him back to the 40-man, he’d be a free agent, but letting g of
talent like that needing to fill spots in the pen seems foolish.
There was next to no amount of normalization when it comes
to production in 2020. With the season being just 60 games, a small sample size
was the absolute best you’d be able to get. Having chopped up opportunity as
Littell did, and seemingly losing his stature during the first week of the season,
it’d be great to see him compete with a traditional runway once again.
If Minnesota is truly going to shave payroll in response to
decreased revenues during 2020, then making sure there’s an adequate amount of
low-cost, high-performing talents internally is a must. That may mean there’s a
revolving door for some spots until they get it right, but it can’t mean moving
on from options prior to determining what is truly there. Zack Littell looks
the part of a bounce-back contributor next season and giving up on that
possibility when he’s just 25-years-old would be a mistake.
