We are still about week away from free agency at the earliest. And that’s only going to happen if there’s a sweep since free agency begins a day after the World Series comes to an end. Even when that happens true free agency doesn’t begin right away as teams have five days after that to have exclusive negotiations with to-be free agents who were with them in 2025. When those five days are up if players have not agreed to a new contract then they can become true free agents and negotiate with all teams unless they are extended a qualifying offer during that. I don’t remember the last time a player agreed to a new deal before testing the true free agent waters within that 5-day “exclusive negotiating” period of time.
This year the Cincinnati Reds have a few players who are set to become free agents at some point in the next two weeks. We’ve already taken a look at Miguel Andujar and Emilio Pagan in this series and today we’re going to look at starting pitcher Zack Littell.
The right-handed pitcher was acquired at the trade deadline in a move with the Tampa Bay Rays that saw Cincinnati bring Littell in and send out pitching prospects Adam Serwinowski and Brian Van Belle.
Zack Littell made 22 starts for the Rays before being traded. In that time he threw 133.1 innings with a 3.58 ERA. That was good for an ERA+ of 115, which is the ERA adjusted for the parks a guy has pitched in where 100 is league average – meaning Littell’s ERA was 15% better than the league average to that point.
After he joined Cincinnati he would go on to make another 10 starts for the Reds. He would throw 53.1 innings and post an ERA of 4.39. That was good for an ERA+ of 105. It was still above the league average, but not quite as good as his time with the Rays.
With both Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, Littell struggled to keep the ball in the park. He gave up 36 home runs on the season in his 186.2 innings. That was the second most home runs allowed in Major League Baseball in 2025. He threw more innings than most pitchers in baseball, which allowed him to give up a lot of homers, but when we look at pitchers with at least 100 innings in 2025 he was 9th in baseball in home runs allowed per 9-innings pitched.
Littell has never been a big strikeout pitcher, but in 2025 his strikeout rate was the lowest of his career in a season in which he pitched in more than 10 games. Where he does shine is his low walk rate. He’s among the stingiest pitchers in baseball when it comes to free passes, ranking 3rd among the 127 pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched this past season.
You can see the career stats for Zack Littell here.
The Qualifying Offer
This year the qualifying offer in Major League Baseball is $22,025,000 for a 1-year contract.
Cincinnati made such an offer (at slightly lesser money) last offseason to Nick Martinez. He accepted it. He was the only player who accepted it in Major League Baseball in the offseason last year.
Zack Littell, like Nick Martinez, is not eligible for the qualifying offer. A team can’t offer it to a player who got one previously in their career (Martinez). They also can’t offer it to a player acquired via a trade during the most recent season (like Littell).
Should the Reds bring him back?
Cincinnati can’t make Littell a qualifying offer but nothing is stopping them from bringing him back on a new contract.
When the 2026 season begins Zack Littell will be 30-years-old and he’ll remain 30 all season long as he won’t turn 31 until October. In his big league career he’s made under $10,000,000. That means he’s likely going to be looking for the biggest deal he can get rather than take some sort of discount for one reason or another.
For Cincinnati the question is does it make sense to bring Littell back. One on hand they don’t “need” him to have five starting pitchers. Without Littell the team could fill out five spots from the group of Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott, Brady Singer, Rhett Lowder, and Chase Burns as long as everyone is healthy. But we are also talking about pitchers and they don’t exactly tend to stay healthy for a full season.
Cincinnati had four starters throw at least 156.2 innings in 2025. One of those guys was Nick Martinez, but he’s also a free agent. With how bullpens are set up and used in the modern game and how often guys tend to get hurt in the era of velocity and spin there just aren’t as many guys who eat innings as there used to be. Littell has only had two seasons in his career as a full time starter and both have come in the last two years. In 2025 he threw more innings than all but 10 pitchers in the game. While it’s premature to call him an innings eater given he’s only topped 90 innings twice in his career and 160 innings once, he showed in 2025 that he at least has a chance to be among the guys who could eat plenty of innings.
The rumors out there suggest that Cincinnati could look to move a starting pitcher in a trade so they could acquire some help on offense given that what they need may be out of their price range on the free agency market. If they do go that route then taking a longer look at bringing Littell back could make a lot more sense.
There are some concerns with Littell, too. His track record as a starting pitcher is rather short. His strikeout rate is low. And he gives up a lot of home runs. Plenty of contact and plenty of home runs in Great American Ball Park usually doesn’t go well. Some pitchers have been able to get away with that. Most haven’t. The upside doesn’t seem too high for Littell. The downside seems low, too, given the contact and home run rates in his profile.
Given the current roster construction of the Cincinnati Reds for 2026 it’s a tough sell to bring back Zack Littell. With what we all assume are limited funds being available and having the pitching depth that the team does have using money that will be available to the front office from ownership on starting pitching feels like it’s not the best use of resources to improve the weakness of the team they are bringing back.
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