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Former Bulldog pitcher Ethan Small joins 60-man player pool of Brewers

Small was a first-round MLB Draft pick by Milwaukee in 2019

Make it a dozen former Mississippi State Bulldogs that are now a part of the 60-man player pools of MLB teams ahead of the scheduled 2020 season.

Former Mississippi State pitcher Ethan Small has been added to the player pool of the Milwaukee Brewers. The left-hander was a first-round MLB Draft choice of Milwaukee's just last year.

Small joins the likes of 11 other former MSU players who will either start the 2020 season on an active roster or be in waiting should their respective teams need them. The other 11 ex-Bulldogs on a player pool at this point include Mitch Moreland with the Boston Red Sox, Hunter Renfroe and Nate Lowe with the Tampa Bay Rays, Kendall Graveman with the Seattle Mariners, Chris Stratton and Adam Frazier with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Brandon Woodruff with the Brewers, Jonathan Holder with the New York Yankees, Dakota Hudson with the St. Louis Cardinals, Brent Rooker with the Minnesota Twins and Jack Kruger with the Los Angeles Angels. Small, Rooker and Kruger are the only three of the 12 that haven't seen action at the MLB level in their careers yet.

There is no guarantee any of those three will make it to The Show this year either, but being on a 60-man player pool is the first step to possibly getting to the big leagues this season. There will be no Minor League Baseball season, thus many top prospects, like Small, are a part of player pools where they'll continue to work out and stay sharp if they aren't on an MLB active roster. 

This year, MLB active rosters will start out the season at 30 men, then decrease down to 28, then 26 as the season goes on. Should an MLB team need to replace someone on their active roster due to injury or a COVID-19 infection or underperformance or any other reason, the squad can only pull from its player pool.

At the very least, being in a player pool allows players to continue to develop against high-level competition – something many players won't get the opportunity to do this year with no Minor League campaign.

All MLB teams are set to begin their seasons on either July 23 or 24. This year, teams are only slated to play 60 games in the regular season – 102 games fewer than in a traditional season.