Ethan Robert Small (born February 14, 1997) is an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

for the

Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division. The Brewers are named for t ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB). He made his MLB debut in 2022.

Amateur career

Small attended Lexington High School in

Lexington, Tennessee Lexington is a city in Henderson County, Tennessee, United States. Lexington is midway between Memphis and Nashville, lying south of Interstate 40, which connects the two cities. The population was 7,956 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat ...

. He was not drafted out of high school in the

2015 Major League Baseball draft The 2015 Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft was held from June 8 through June 10, 2015, to assign amateur baseball players to MLB teams. The draft order is the reverse order of the 2014 MLB season standings. As the Diamondbacks ...

, thus enrolling at

Mississippi State University Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...

. As a freshman at Mississippi State in 2016, Small pitched only ten innings. After the season, he played

collegiate summer baseball Collegiate summer baseball leagues are amateur baseball leagues in the United States and Canada featuring players who have attended at least one year of college and have at least one year of athletic eligibility remaining. Generally, they operat ...

with the Wareham Gatemen of the

Cape Cod Baseball League The Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL or Cape League) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league located on Cape Cod in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. One of the nation's premier collegiate summer leagues, the league boasts over one thousan ...

. After his freshman campaign, he underwent

Tommy John surgery Ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, colloquially known as Tommy John surgery (TJS), is a surgical graft procedure where the ulnar collateral ligament in the medial elbow is replaced with either a tendon from elsewhere in the patient's bo ...

and missed all of 2017. He returned as a redshirt sophomore in 2018, starting 18 games, going 5–4 with a 3.20

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

(ERA). In 2019, Small went 10–2 with a 1.93 ERA in 18 starts, striking out 176 batters in 107 innings, and was named the SEC Pitcher of the Year. He won the 2019

National Pitcher of the Year Award The National Pitcher of the Year Award is a college baseball award given to the best pitcher of the college baseball season by the College Baseball Foundation. The current holder of the award is Cooper Hjerpe of the Oregon State Beavers. Winn ...

Professional career

Small was drafted with 28th overall pick by the

in the first round of the

2019 Major League Baseball draft The 2019 Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft was held from June 3 to 5, 2019. The draft assigned amateur baseball players to MLB teams. The draft order was set based on the reverse order of the 2018 MLB season standings. In additi ...

. He signed for $1.8 million. He made his professional debut with the Arizona League Brewers, and, after two games, was promoted to the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. Over seven starts between the two teams, he went 0–2 with a 0.86 ERA, striking out 36 over 21 innings. He did not play a minor league game in 2020 due to the cancellation of the season. Small began the 2021 season with the Biloxi Shuckers and was promoted to the

Nashville Sounds The Nashville Sounds are a Minor League Baseball team of the International League and the Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. They are located in Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, and are named for the ci ...

during the season. That June, he was selected to play in the

All-Star Futures Game The All-Star Futures Game is an annual baseball exhibition game hosted by Major League Baseball (MLB) in conjunction with the mid-summer MLB All-Star Game. A team of American League-affiliated prospects competes against a team of National League ...

. Over 18 starts in 2021, Small went 4–2 with a 1.98 ERA and 92 strikeouts over innings. Small was assigned to Triple-A Nashville to begin the 2022 season. On May 30, 2022, Small was selected to the 40-man roster and promoted to the major leagues for the first time to make a spot start against the

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...

. Small was optioned to Triple-A Nashville to begin the 2023 season.

Pitching style

Small features a lively low- to mid-90 mph fastball—scouts often described it as a "rising" fastball—a curveball and changeup. He has been known to vary his windup timing on his pitches, to give him an advantage over hitters, similar to pitchers such as

Marcus Stroman Marcus Earl Stroman (born May 1, 1991) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played in MLB for the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets. Stroman is listed at , making him on ...

and Johnny Cueto.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Small, Ethan 1997 births Living people People from Jackson, Tennessee Baseball players from Tennessee All-American college baseball players Major League Baseball pitchers Milwaukee Brewers players Mississippi State Bulldogs baseball players Wareham Gatemen players Arizona League Brewers players Biloxi Shuckers players Nashville Sounds players Wisconsin Timber Rattlers players Arizona Complex League Brewers players Leones del Escogido players