Attention Baltimore fans, welcome back Sam Huff after a quick six day vacation!
The former Rangers' 7th round pick out of high school, Huff was DFA'd by the Orioles on April 21 following a brief stint on the organization's big league roster as Adley Rutschman was nursing an ankle injury.
Upon his release, Huff elected to enter free agency this weekend before eventually re-signing a minor league deal with the O's and getting assigned to Triple-A Norfolk. During that brief stint with the big league club, the 28-year-old went 2-for-9 in three games.
Huff's career never has found traction
It's tough being a top prospect or young star in any professional sports setting but none is a crazier uphill climb than Major League Baseball. Even harder when the player is a relatively higher draft choice directly out of high school.
Huff, a Phoenix native, at one point was Texas's second overall prospect and a once Top 100 prospect across MLB. And it's not like his minor league numbers were bad, in fact quite opposite. For his career in the minors, Huff has played in parts of 10 seasons with a .259 average, 125 home runs, 408 RBIs and an .801 OPS in 670 games.
It's the major league level where he has fizzled out, like many before him and many to come after him. Spread out through six seasons, the power right-hander has generated a fair .246 average and .726 OPS in 101 games but never found any consistency that warranted play over other players.
For Huff it was more bad timing for him in Texas as the emergence of Jonah Heim in 2023 really didn't do him any favors. The end result was him getting released by Texas at the end of the 2024 season and has since seen playing time with the San Francisco Giants and Orioles.
Next up for Huff is to keep on the trajectory he is going. He must've felt comfortable in Baltimore after being willing to sign back with him after directly declining an outright assignment to Norfolk once he went unclaimed.