Zack Littell is the latest reliever to emerge into a starter for the Rays
The Rays always seem to find a diamond in the rough when it comes to pitching. That appears to have happened again with right-hander Zack Littell who was claimed off waivers from the Red Sox last season and is now locked into the Rays rotation for 2024.
Littell enters Rays camp feeling stronger and ready for his full transition from a reliever to a starter. He is expected to join Zach Eflin and Aaron Civale atop the Rays rotation.
The righty is going to work on building up his stamina while in camp to be ready for the regular season at the end of March. He is coordinating with his pitching coach Kyle Snyder on a plan to incorporate more weight work and reducing the amount of throwing sessions, according to Marc Topkin of Tampa Bay Times.
“It’s a little bit of a different feeling,” Littell said to Topkin. “But I think the mindset is the same as far as making sure you’re ready to go for opening day.”
Littell isn’t taking his new opportunity with the Rays for granted, he knows he needs to put in the work and not get complacent on the mound.
“We’re still going out there every spring game and competing like it’s your job,” Littell said “I think you fall in the mindset of like, ‘Hey, your spot is safe,’ that’s kind of when you get in trouble.”
Following his two game stint with the Red Sox, Littell ended up with the Rays. His tenure didn’t start out great, posting a 5.51 ERA in 12 appearances and then landed on the injured list with shoulder fatigue. While he was on the IL, it allowed the righty to get focused and back on a routine and proof was in the pudding.
The North Carolina native came off the IL, moved into the rotation in July and shoved, owning a 3.34 ERA over 12 starts with an impressive 51-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Littell offers a five-pitch mix on the mound, a slider, four-seam fastball, split finger, sinker and sweeper. His put away pitch last year was his four-seam heater, getting 20.7 percent of all batters faced out with that pitch. The righties split finger was filthy, inducing 28.1 percent Whiff rate and holding opponents to just two homers and 22 strikeouts.
The most impressive stat for Littell was being in the 100th percentile for walks, offering a 3.2 percent walk rate, one of the best in the league for 2023.
His manager Kevin Cash has been very appreciative of what Littell has had to offer to the Rays since joining the organization.
“I don’t know where we would have gotten without Zack Littell and the contributions (he made),” Cash said. “We have built starters up in the past from reliever to starter; that one was about as smooth a transition as you could ask for, and in pretty dominant fashion. He was efficient, threw strikes, got deep into ballgames. With all starters, that’s kind of their goal to do.”
Littell helped the Rays get into the postseason, becoming the latest pitcher since Doug Fister with the Red Sox to have been claimed off waivers and then make at least 10 regular season starts for the claiming team.
“I joke about that a lot with people: If you'd have told me this in the offseason -- 'Hey, you're gonna be a starter for a contender in September' -- I'd be like, 'All right. I'm gonna retire first,’” Littell said to MLB.com in September. “It's been pretty fun. I just can't think of a better situation to come and do it in, either, with the resources that Tampa [Bay] has and pitch development and then even the staff around me, just learning from those guys.”
Littell is ready for this new challenge, one where he is not at the bottom of a 40-man roster depth chart but in the middle of a rotation for a possibly playoff contender in 2024.
“I definitely feel like a starter,” he said. “I feel like I have proven that I can do it, now It’s just a matter of going out there and doing it over the course of a full season.
“The best starters in the league are the ones that have been doing it for seven, eight, nine years and posting 25-plus starts a year. So that’s hard in and of itself. I think that I’m extremely capable of doing it. Now it’s just a matter of going and doing it.”
