Like a sponge, the Texas Rangers’ top prospect is soaking up knowledge from everyone
The last set of lockers in the Texas Rangers’ spring clubhouse is filled with players who have no big-league experience.
The biggest benefit of the location, other than it being in a major-league clubhouse, is the proximity to the players-only exit.
Being next to the bathroom and showers can be a benefit and a curse.
The lone exception in the string of prospects and minor-league invitees is the player with the most MLB service time on the team, catcher Jeff Mathis. His locker is right next to Sam Huff.
It’s not a coincidence.
“Really?” Mathis said, very sarcastically.
The veteran, entering his 16th MLB season, is taking the Rangers’ top prospect, who has never played above Class A, to catching school this spring. Class has been in session since before pitchers and catchers reported Feb. 11.
Mathis isn’t the only professor, but Huff is the prized pupil as the Rangers ready him for the season at Double A Frisco and for what they hope is a productive major-league career.
They think he has a chance to be a star.
“He really wants to learn,” Mathis said. “I’m impressed with the way he wants to learn and be receptive with several things. He’s obviously talented. We all know that.”
The first thing that stands out to every one when asked about Huff is his aptitude and desire to learn. Well, his size is hard to miss, but more on that later.
Huff has come to his first big-league camp eager to absorb any bit of information, and he isn’t waiting for someone to give it to him.
If he has a question, he asks it. And he listens to the answer, rather than that guy who acts like he knows everything.
Huff, 22, who attended Arcadia High School in nearby Phoenix, has been open to any suggestion and willing to try everything thrown at him. He’s a man rarely at his locker and almost always on the move.
“Learning, trying to pick brains, just seeing who I can talk to on a different day,” said Huff, the Rangers’ seventh-round pick in the 2016 draft. “I always want to learn. If there’s a day I’m not learning, I’m doing something wrong.”
Hector Ortiz is handling the physical growth, like the one-knee catching and receiving. Bench coach Don Wakamatsu is more focused on the mental side, and Frisco manager Bobby Wilson will continue working Huff through how to build game reports independently and how to build relationships with pitchers.
The hope is that Huff will have a solid knowledge on reports so that he can incorporate advanced scouting and analytics once he finally reaches the major leagues.
So far, Huff has found himself on the right page.
“He’s pretty advanced for his age,” Ortiz said. “He’s pretty smart and very receptive. He has good aptitude when we’re teaching him new things. And he’s a hard-working kid. Sometimes we have to back him off a bit. He wants more and more and more, but we don’t want to wear down his body.”
Among the other things the Rangers are trying to tackle is Huff’s size. At 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds, he’s especially large for his position. The Rangers have no plans to move him off the position.
But they have a plan to take some stress off his body through one-knee catching. The roof at Globe Life Field will also help keeping Huff fresh. So will the fact that Huff is surprisingly flexible.
“There’s been the Joel Skinners and Sandy Alomars,” Wakamatsu said. “I saw him two years ago in a sim game, and it really impressed me — the flexibility he has. When you’re talking about big guys, if they’re not mobile that could lead to injuries.”
If his mammoth home run Sunday and his 2019 season are any indication, Huff is doing just fine offensively. He spent last year at Low A Hickory and High A Down East focusing on the fastball, and he smoked 28 home runs.
He cooled off at Down East after a torrid start at Hickory and a quick promotion, so there’s definitely room to improve. And, at MLB’s All-Star festivities in Cleveland last year, he hit the winning home run in the Futures Game and was selected as the MVP.
Huff was under the spotlight for the first time and handled it well. It’s not the MLB spotlight, but the Rangers are trying to prepare him for that this spring.
He’s been a willing pupil.
“I always want to learn,” Huff said. “I’ve talked to everybody about certain things I can do and what I can do to improve my game and how I can do my everyday stuff better.”
