{"id":409283,"date":"2026-01-15T18:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409283\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:43:08","slug":"orioles-sam-huff-agree-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409283\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles, Sam Huff Agree To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orioles have agreed to a minor league contract with catcher Sam Huff<\/a>, reports<\/a> MASNsports.com\u2019s Roch Kubatko. The ALIGND Sports client will presumably be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.<\/p>\n

A seventh-rounder by the Rangers back in 2016, the as-of-yesterday 28-year-old Huff has played in parts of five major league seasons. He once rated as one of the top catching prospects in the sport and carries a decent .247\/.301\/.430 batting line in the majors. That production comes in a sample of only 272 plate appearances and spite of a 36% strikeout rate, however. Huff\u2019s rate stats have been buoyed by a .350 average on balls in play.<\/p>\n

Huff has solid framing grades in his limited major league work but has struggled with blocking balls in the dirt and controlling the run game. He has just an 18.5% caught-stealing rate in his career and has been charged with eight passed balls in 507 innings behind the dish.<\/p>\n

The minor league numbers for Huff aren\u2019t bad. He\u2019s tallied exactly 1200 plate appearances in Triple-A and carries a lifetime .258\/.338\/.476 slash at that level, including 56 homers, 60 doubles, a pair of triples and a 10.2% walk rate. Contact has been an issue for him even at the top minor league level, though; he\u2019s fanned in an untenable 29.9% of his trips to the plate in Triple-A.<\/p>\n

With the Orioles, Huff figures to be a pure depth option. Top prospect Samuel Basallo<\/a> and mainstay Adley Rutschman<\/a> will handle the catching duties in the majors. Twenty-seven-year-old Maverick Handley<\/a> got some looks as a glove-first option behind the dish when the O\u2019s were dealing with injuries in 2025 as well, though he\u2019s since been removed from the 40-man roster. Huff can join Handley in Triple-A Norfolk and give the organization an option as a righty bat at first base, too (not that they\u2019re lacking in that regard). He\u2019s logged 73 career games (566 innings) at first base between the minors and the big leagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orioles have agreed to a minor league contract with catcher Sam Huff, reports MASNsports.com\u2019s Roch Kubatko. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,196624,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-409283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sam-huff","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}