Cubs castoff comes back to hurt them in loss to Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays have been reaping the rewards of a very "little-known" transaction that took place in November of 2023. That's when the Blue Jays purchased former first-round draft pick Brendon Little from the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs drafted Little (27th overall) as a 21-year-old out of college and watched him deliver mixed results over the next few seasons as he worked through different levels of the minor leagues. He reached the majors in 2022 but appeared in just one game with the Cubs, allowing three earned runs, and recording just two outs.

Ironically, that one game came at Rogers Centre against the Blue Jays and was Little was only on the roster as a COVID substitute. After that game on August 30, Little spent the rest of 2022 and 2023 in Triple-A with Iowa, never getting another sniff of the big league level.

Cubs castoff comes back to hurt them in loss to Blue Jays

The disappointment would have been obvious for the Cubs to have used a first-round pick on a player that gave them all of two outs at the MLB level to that point. The Blue Jays came calling in the winter of 2023 and the Cubs barely blinked when they sent the 27-year-old southpaw to Toronto for cash.

Little got into 49 games for a Blue Jays team that was not very good in 2024, but Little made the most of his experience, pitching to a 109 ERA+ in 45.2 innings with 36 strikeouts and 7.9 K/9 rate. He was one of the lone bright spots in a bullpen that was ranked as one of the worst in baseball.

Going into 2025, Little looked to have an inside track to breaking camp with Toronto as one of the few left-handers that had big league experience. He made his season debut in the Jays second game of the year on March 28 and struck out the only two batters he faced. Since then, he has been one of the most consistent and reliable arms in the Blue Jays bullpen all season.

He had a tremendous 24-game stretch from April until June where he allowed just one earned run in 23.1 innings pitched, with 33 strikeouts and just 12 walks and 12 hits. He had a rough outing this past weekend when he gave up three runs and two walks to the Dodgers on Friday, but bounced back and pitched an inning and a third on clean baseball on Sunday to keep the Dodgers off the scoreboard.

On Tuesday, facing is old team for only the second time in his career, he got two big outs in a crucial point of the game. He entered the top of the seventh with runners on first and second and managed to get Kyle Tucker to ground out to third base, and after walking Carson Kelly to load the bases, he struck out one of the best hitters in the game, getting Pete Crow-Armstrong to swing right over the top of an 87.6 mph knuckle curve to strand the bases loaded and keep the Blue Jays 4-1 lead intact.

Sure it's just one outing in a game in August, but the Cubs can't be feeling to happy right now about a trade they must have considered a roster dump two years ago. Meanwhile, the Little is just one of several Blue Jays depth players that has carried them to a 70-win season, and counting.