Opinion: Zack Littell clearly the best Nationals pitcher in the starting rotation

Zack Littell (YouTube)

Zack Littell of Burlington, North Carolina is only listed as third in the Washington Nationals starting rotation, but anyway you look at it, he should be clearly ranked number one. He is statistically much better than Cade Cavalli, Foster Griffin, Miles Mikolas and Jake Irvin.

Littell joined the Nationals organization during the World Baseball Classic. According to Nick Deeds of MLB Trade Rumors, he signed a one year deal worth $7 million on March 10. In addition to the $7 million, Littell can earn $2.5 million in incentives.

The Nationals are Littell’s sixth Major League Baseball team. He previously pitched for three seasons with the Minnesota Twins (2018 to 2020), two seasons with the San Francisco Giants (2021 and 2022), one season with the Boston Red Sox (2023), three seasons with the Tampa Bay Rays (2023 to 2025), and one season with the Cincinnati Reds (2025).

Last season with the Reds and Rays, Littell had a record of 10 wins and eight losses with an earned run average of 3.81. During 32 games and 186 2/3 innings pitched, Littell gave up 174 hits, 79 earned runs, 36 home runs and 32 walks, to go along with 130 strikeouts, one complete game, 17 quality starts and a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 1.10.

Littell’s most notable start was the complete game on May 31. In Littell’s nine innings of work, he threw 117 pitches of which 83 pitches were strikes. He gave up only three earned runs and had six strikeouts in a 16-3 Rays triumph over the Houston Astros.

The Nationals are in need of preventing their opponents from scoring runs. They gave up 899 runs in 2025, the second most in the Major Leagues. Only the Colorado Rockies gave up more with 1021 runs allowed. The addition of Littell should help the Nationals organization and in the process they might have just found an ace.