The Orioles announced Wednesday that they’ve selected the contract of catcher Sam Huff from Triple-A Norfolk. Left-hander Jayvien Sandridge, who had been pitching in Triple-A, was designated for assignment to open a 40-man spot. Lefty Nick Raquet was optioned to Norfolk to open space for Huff on the active roster.
Huff’s call to the big leagues means the O’s will be playing a reliever short for at least today. Huff joins the roster as a third catcher alongside Samuel Basallo and Maverick Handley. Adley Rutschman hit the injured list last week due to an ankle issue.
Baltimore signed Huff to a minor league contract back in January. He’s a former Rangers seventh-rounder who’s played in parts of five major league seasons. Now 28 years old, Huff 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 despite a 36% strikeout rate, however. Huff’s production has been buoyed by a .350 average on balls in play that he’s not likely to sustain over a long period.
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.
It’s been a struggle for Huff in a tiny sample of nine games with Norfolk this year. He’s hitting .156/.250/.168 in 36 plate appearances with the Tides but has a much stronger overall track record in Triple-A. Huff entered the season with a lifetime .258/.338/.476 slash, 56 homers, 60 doubles, a pair of triples, a 10.2% walk rate and a more troubling 29.9% strikeout rate in exactly 1200 Triple-A plate appearances.
The 27-year-old Sandridge joined the O’s in a cash swap with the Angels shortly after Opening Day. He was originally a 32nd-round pick by Baltimore back in 2018 but bounces from the Orioles, to the Reds, to the Padres, to the Yankees and to the Angels since that selection. Sandridge made an extremely brief MLB debut last season, facing a total of six hitters and retiring two of them. He has just two-thirds of an inning and two earned runs in the majors.
Sandridge has pitched in parts of seven minor league seasons but totaled only 243 1/3 total innings. He’s logged a solid 3.96 earned run average in that time and punched out nearly one-third of his opponents — but he’s also issued walks at a 17% clip and plunked another 22 of the 1108 batters he’s faced (2%). Coupled with a whopping 44 wild pitches, it’s more than fair to say that command is a major hindrance for the southpaw.
This season, Sandridge has tossed 1 2/3 scoreless innings with Norfolk, but he’s walked three of the nine batters he’s faced. It’s only a sample of two games, but it’s notable that his heater, which sat just shy of 95 mph in Triple-A and averaged 95.6 mph in last year’s brief debut, is clocking in at an average of 92.9 mph in 2026.
Sandridge is in the second of his three minor league option years. A team looking for some left-handed bullpen depth with a knack for missing bats could roll the dice on a waiver claim or a cash swap like the one that sent Sandridge back to Baltimore in the first place. The Orioles have five days to trade him or place him on waivers. Since waivers are a 48-hour process, the outcome of his DFA will be known within the next week.
