Catcher Sam Huff cleared waivers and was assigned outright to Triple-A Sacramento, according to a report from Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. Huff had previously been designated for assignment by the club earlier this week.
Huff, 27, was a seventh-round pick by the Rangers back in 2016 who was a consensus top-100 prospect in baseball back in 2020 and 2021. He made his big league debut during the shortened 2020 season and looked utterly sensational in a ten-game sample, slashing .355/.394/.742 in his brief call-up to the majors that year. That strong start to Huff’s career combined with his prospect status to create huge expectations, but he was sidelined by injury for much of the 2021 season and posted pedestrian numbers at Double-A when he was healthy enough to play. He turned things around after arriving at Triple-A, however, and his .260/.336/.533 slash line at the level in 2022 was enough to earn him another shot in the majors.
The backstop was generally a solid but unspectacular hitter in the majors during both the 2022 and ’23 campaigns. He got into 65 games in total for the club those years, and across his 177 plate appearances he hit .244/.299/.409 with a 98 wRC+. That’s just 2% below league average, and slightly better than the average catcher slash line. Even so, Huff was never a particularly robust defender behind the plate, so as a bat-first catcher who was only league average he quickly fell behind other options on the Rangers depth chart like Jonah Heim. Even so, he continued to rake at Triple-A and showed enough offensive talent that the club continued to hold out hope for an eventual breakout.
Things took a turn for the worse in 2024, as Huff barely found use in the majors (appearing in just three games with four total plate appearances) and stopped hitting even at the Triple-A level. After years of raking for the organization’s Round Rock affiliate, Huff slashed just .246/.310/.416 in 111 games at Triple-A last year. That’s not a terrible slash line in a vacuum, but when one factors in both Huff’s status as a then-26-year-old at Triple-A and the inflated offensive environment of the Pacific Coast League, it’s easy to see that an 82 wRC+ at Triple-A wouldn’t cut it. With Huff out of options entering 2025, the Rangers gave up on their longtime prospect and designated him for assignment.
That led him to join the Giants, for whom he entered the season as the backup to defensive stalwart Patrick Bailey. Ultimately, Huff appeared in 20 games with San Francisco but hit just .208/.259/.340 with a wRC+ of 68 in 58 plate appearances. While he’s always been prone to swing and miss, Huff’s 43.1% strikeout rate in a Giants uniform was downright alarming. Given that lackluster performance, it’s hardly a shock that the Giants decided to go in another direction for their backup to Bailey. With that being said, the club clearly still valued Huff as a potential depth option behind the plate. He’ll return to Triple-A for the time being as a non-roster depth piece for the Giants, and if he goes through the end of the season without being added back to the 40-man roster he’ll be able to elect minor league free agency and hit the open market for the first time in his career.
I remember Giants Sam Huff as being much older, and a football player
The Violent World of Sam Huff was a little film they made about him. It had some great primitive NFL trash-talking in it.
Fun fact from Huff’s BR Bullpen page:
“On July 2, 2021, playing in the Arizona Complex League on a rehabilitation assignment, he launched a monster homer measured at 511 feet; as a point of comparison, only two homers had been measured over 500 feet in the Statcast era in the majors, with the record being 505 feet.”
Huff is the stuff.
“Huff appeared in 20 games with San Francisco and but hit just .208/.259/.340 with a wRC+ of 68 in 58 plate appearances”
Still a bit better than Bailey, who’s hitting .185/.246/.272 with a 46 wRC+ in 180 PA’s.
A little bit better I suppose. Then there’s Bailey’s number 1 ranking in DRS for catchers and 15th overall.
And when you add it all together; that’s a 0.1 bWar (0.9 fWar).
Yes, he can throw guys out, but he’s not a very good player overall.
Sadler, Wrong. He’s not a very good hitter. But, how does a “not very good player” win a gold glove? Admittedly the gold glove can be overrated, but there’s more to Bailey than that.
In 2024 he was 1st in framing, tied for 1st in pop time, and 2nd in catcher’s CS above average. He’s currently in 1st for catcher’s CS above average since the start of the 2024 until now.
In 2024 he was also 1st in fielding run value, by a whopping 6 points. That’s basically Statcast saying he was the best defensive player in MLB regardless of position, and it wasn’t even close. Saying he’s not a very good player makes you look very foolish.
True enough, Bailey has floundered at the plate since mid-2024. That said, he’s in the majors for his defense. He was a well deserved gold glover last year at the position, and he continues to rank very highly amount catchers in most relevant defensive categories.
Yes, hasn’t hit since July 2024. Hard to watch.
I’m sure he left in a Huff.
Happy that the G’s are getting lucky with a few wins vs ATL. Get those wins baby. So far the new additions have been a blessing to change things up. Longer term we’ll see. I’d look for a Vet Starter at the deadline Verlander could be swapped.
When he got the news of his outright assignment Sam went off in a HUFF!