Within quite literally minutes of the end of the Tampa Bay Rays’ extra-innings loss to the New York Yankees on Wednesday night, news broke that the Rays pitcher who started the game had just pitched his last game for them. Jeff Passan of ESPN was the first to report that starting pitcher Zack Littell was on his way from the Rays to the Cincinnati Reds, in a trade that was done pending medical examinations.
News of the outgoing pieces in the trade for the Reds was not immediately available, but was later revealed by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer to be a two-for one pitcher package of minor leaguers Brian Van Belle (Triple-A and on the 40-man roster) and Adam Serwinowski (currently pitching A ball).
Plucked from the waiver wire in 2023 after a brief and unsuccessful stint with the Boston Red Sox, the Rays turned Littell’s career around. Known for pitcher redemption arcs, the Rays’ brain trust transformed a journeyman reliever on the fringes of the majors into an innings-eating back-end starter who can help any team.
Going forward, it seems that “any team” will be the Reds. Or at least, they will be until Littell hits free agency this summer.
Littell’s Craft Over Velocity
Littell’s final start for the Rays was highly indicative of what he has given the team over the last two seasons. He held the Yankees scoreless across five innings in his final start, and sports a 3.58 ERA in 22 starts so far this season, highlighted by an extremely low 1.42 BB/9 walk rate, second in the majors among qualified players only to Detroit Tigers superstar Tarik Skubal.
Notwithstanding that excellent control, the great concern for the Reds will be the home run rate. Although they are mostly solo shots, Littell has given up the most home runs in baseball so far in 2025, and it is not an anomalous figure. In his career, across 549.1 innings, Littell has given up 88 homers.
The 29-year-old right hander relies on excellent location rather than high levels of velocity and movement. When he misses his spots – particularly if he leaves his slide piece, which has been crushed all year, too high in the zone – it is readily dispatched into the car park by major league hitters.
Moving a homer-leaking pitcher to a homer-friendly field like the Great American Ball Park is not an ideal unison of player and situation. Nonetheless, the Reds have acquired Littell because of the opportunity cost he represents, at a time that they are looking to buy low.
Reds Uncharacteristically Aggressive
Having acquired third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes from the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier in the day, the Reds are making moves to try and improve the present without giving up much of importance in the future. By their own standards, this is an aggressive deadline.
As above, Littell will head to free agency this summer and want a raise on the $5.72 million he is earning this season. Yet whether he stays or goes, the Reds can now approach the final stages of the National League Central pennant race – or perhaps more realistically, the NL Wild Card race – with a starting rotation of him, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Hunter Greene (once healthy), Brady Singer, and potentially Chase Burns. It also frees them up to deal their own upcoming free agent swingman, Nick Martinez, in the final 24 hours before the deadline.
Meanwhile, having previously optioned struggling third-year player Taj Bradley, the Rays now have a gap in their rotation. Staff ace Shane McClanahan is on a rehab assignments at Triple-A Durham currently, but will need a lot more time before he is back at his best after another setback, and with the bullpen already an area of grave concern, the immediate future for the Rays’ pitching staff is uncomfortably unclear.
Then again, the Rays are having a gap of a season. With Littell heading to free agency and with neither party having shown any signs of his returning, he was always the likeliest Ray to get dealt during this conflicted trade window of theirs, And while the ballpark factor made the Reds one of the less obvious destinations for him, that was not their concern.
The Rays, at least in this instance, recognized the value in getting what they could for someone who was going to leave anyway. And they managed to bury the news for long enough to get five more innings out of Littell on his way out of the door, too.
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