{"id":347945,"date":"2026-07-21T23:44:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/347945\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T23:44:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:44:31","slug":"baseballs-leffew-signs-with-tampa-bay-rays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/347945\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball\u2019s Leffew signs with Tampa Bay Rays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Texas Longhorns junior <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/haiden-leffew\/15060\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15060\" target=\"_blank\">Haiden Leffew<\/a> signed a professional contract with the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Leffew is the second Longhorn to ink a free agent deal following the 2026 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, joining fellow relief pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/cal-higgins\/15069\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15069\" target=\"_blank\">Cal Higgins<\/a> (Philadelphia Phillies).<\/p>\n<p>Texas also had six players selected in the draft, as <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/carson-tinney\/15056\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15056\" target=\"_blank\">Carson Tinney<\/a> (second round), <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/aiden-robbins\/15083\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15083\" target=\"_blank\">Aiden Robbins<\/a> (third round), <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/ruger-riojas\/15062\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15062\" target=\"_blank\">Ruger Riojas<\/a> (third round), <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/thomas-burns\/17038\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"17038\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Burns<\/a> (eighth round), <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/luke-harrison\/15090\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15090\" target=\"_blank\">Luke Harrison<\/a> (eighth round) and <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/cody-howard\/15082\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15082\" target=\"_blank\">Cody Howard<\/a> (13th round) all heard their names called.<\/p>\n<p>In his lone season on The Forty Acres, Leffew logged a 4-1 record and a 4.05 ERA over 17 contests.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-1, 235-pound left-hander mounted 31 strikeouts in 20 innings. Leffew held opposing hitters to a .176 average.<\/p>\n<p>Across his three-year collegiate career, he totaled an 11-2 ledger with a 5.02 ERA and four saves. The Kannapolis, N.C., native spent his first two seasons at Wake Forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Texas Longhorns junior Haiden Leffew signed a professional contract with the Tampa Bay Rays on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-347945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}