Athletics Add Luke Little to Minor League Deal: What It Means
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With the clear lack of pitching on the A's big-league staff, the club is making it a priority to land some experienced arms this offseason.
Because experienced arms come with a price, the A's will also look at landing some underrated arms that could possibly make an impact on the 2027 team.
Since the A's have new leadership, with Taylor Smith as their President of Baseball Operations and Cam Castro as their general manager, they will look to make some impact signings this offseason.
The club has finally made its second move of the offseason, after they brought in former Red Sox outfielder Nate Eaton. Now, the A's are bringing in a pitcher who will look to win a spot during Spring Training.
Athletics Add Luke Little to a Minor League Deal
The first pitching addition for the A's this offseason is left-hander Luke Little. Little has pitched in the big leagues in parts of four seasons for the Chicago Cubs.
The southpaw holds a career 2.97 ERA in just 36.1 innings pitched. While it seems like he's been relatively successful in the big leagues, he needs to find a way to stay healthy for a full season.
His best big-league season came back in 2024, when he tossed 26 innings and posted a 3.46 ERA. The Cubs seemed high on Little following that season, even though he spent most of the year injured.
Although Little has very little MLB experience, he has a lot of factors that suggest he has yet to reach his full potential. The lengthy southpaw stands at 6'8, and had lots of teams interested in him in the draft because of a video that surfaced of him throwing 105 miles per hour.
2020 PitchingNinja Award for the Most 🤯 Quarantine Bullpen. 🏆
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 9, 2020
Luke Little.
6'8" Flamethrower...and Oxymoron. pic.twitter.com/BzcbprwYBM
Potential Is There
A tall guy throwing that hard will usually generate lots of buzz. Unfortunately, he's not the same guy he was a few years ago, but a few other metrics also show that he can still be dominant. Back in 2024, he averaged 95.8 miles per hour on his fastball.
Unfortunately, in 2025, during his limited big-league innings, his average fastball velocity dipped to 93.3. However, in his one inning in 2026, his fastball sat back at 95.8 miles per hour on average.
Little also uses his size to get great extension, as he has averaged 7.2-7.7 feet of extension over the last two seasons, which is actually one of the best in all of baseball. This means a 96-mile-per-hour fastball gets on opposing hitters way faster.
You can also pair his velocity and extension with his amazing groundball rate of 60% in 2025 and 71.2% in 2024, and that shows you just how dominant he can still be if he can stay healthy.
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Dylan Quinn grew up playing baseball, and also enjoyed watching and writing about his favorite team, the A’s. Being a diehard A’s fan from New Jersey is certainly not common, but he loves the team and all of the current and former players so much. Quinn currently attends school at Penn State Scranton where he plays baseball.
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