David Huff

While his repertoire has earned comparisons to Tom Glavine's, Huff has more in common with Barry Zito. Like Zito, he pitched for John Savage, UCLA's head coach and Zito's pitching coach in 1999 at Southern California. Huff was with Savage in 2004 at UC Irvine, then (like Zito) transferred as a sophomore to a junior college to test the draft waters. After a year at Cypress (Calif.) Junior College, Huff was drafted by the Phillies but turned down a reported $500,000 bonus to pitch for Savage (as Zito did), this time for the Bruins. Pitching on Saturdays, Huff dominated Pacific-10 Conference foes, tossing three complete games in his first six starts. Like Zito, Huff works with average velocity for a lefthander, having bumped his fastball from a pedestrian 84-87 mph last summer to 86-89 mph this year, touching as high as 91. He's lengthened his stride and improved the balance in his delivery, lifting the quality of his stuff. He has developed solid-average command of his fastball. Unlike Zito, Huff's best pitch is a changeup, rather than a big curve. Huff's change ranks among the best in the country, thrown with the same arm speed as his fastball, and has above-average late sink.