Photo: Doug Gray
Sam Haggerty has joined the Cincinnati Reds organization after signing a minor league deal with the club this weekend. He has been assigned to Triple-A to play with the Louisville Bats.
In each of the last eight seasons Sam Haggerty has spent at least part of the season in Major League Baseball. He made his debut in 2019 with the New York Mets. He played in 11 games that season. Haggerty was claimed on waivers prior to spring training in 2020 by the Seattle Mariners and spend 2021-2024 with their organization before joining the Texas Rangers in 2025. That’s also where he was at in 2026.
Haggerty has spent his big league career as a utility player and has only topped 200 plate appearances in a season once. That was back in 2022 with Seattle and he had 201 plate appearances that year in his 83 games played. In 2025 he hit .253/.328/.370 for Texas in 182 plate appearances over 64 games.
This year he struggled in a more limited role. While he had played in 35 games for the Rangers he only had 47 plate appearances. When he did get a chance to get into the batters box things didn’t go well for him. He hit just .159, walked just two times, and he had just one extra-base hit. All of that led to a .395 OPS before he was designated for assignment on June 5th. Two days later he had cleared waivers and was given his release. You can see his career stats here.
It was less than a week that he was on the market before the Cincinnati Reds scooped him up on a minor league deal. The 32-year-old utility player will likely get somewhat regular playing time in Triple-A with Louisville and if he can get things turned around at the plate and look more like the hitter he has in the past at the big league level prior to this year, he may be able to get back to the highest level where his ability to sub in at just about every spot on the field except catcher has some value on the bench.
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