Around the Curve | Siani Hopes to Follow in Brother’s Footsteps to Achieve Major League Dream

When the calendar flipped to May, Altoona received outfielder Sammy Siani from High-A Greensboro and he’s been a stalwart in the middle of the lineup ever since. The 37^th overall selection out of Penn Charter in 2019, a high-quality prep school just outside of Philadelphia, Sammy Siani has showcased the elite tools needed to be a successful major league player by spraying line drives all over the diamond at the plate and using his excellent speed to run down fly balls in the outfield.

Of course, Sammy’s journey is not all that different from his older brother, Michael. Michael was selected in the fourth round in 2018 by the Cincinnati Reds and has settled in as the near-everyday center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals this season playing a very similar game to his younger brother.

“My brother and I trained at IMG Academy in Florida and worked out together nearly every day,” Sammy said on an episode of The RoundHouse Podcast during his second week with Altoona in May. “I was focused on flattening out my bat bath so that I could get to every pitch in the strike zone and be more effective.”

That work that he put in during the offseason has translated into Sammy’s best season as a professional. After hitting .241 in 39 games in the complex, Siani was ready to head off to a full-season affiliate in 2020 when he was sent home from spring training, along with nearly every other minor league player, because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Siani batted .215 in 62 games with Low-A Bradenton in 2021, but did show his keen eye at the plate; earning 52 walks and recording a very strong .376 on-base percentage.

After spending two seasons with High-A Greensboro in 2022 and 2023, where he batted a combined .217 in two seasons, Siani arrived back in North Carolina to start this season and hit his stride with a .324 average in 20 games with 5 doubles, 4 home runs and 12 RBI. It was clear that the off-season work with his older brother had paid off and gotten his swing on track to cover the plate more effectively.

“[Michael and I] are super close, we spend all the off-season’s training together and we keep in touch a lot during the season, face timing and talking about baseball and just life in general. I’m proud of him and he’s having a lot of fun up there,” Siani shared about his relationship with Michael.

Playing at such a high-level high school program, where he shared the diamond with a pair of other professionals in LHP Joey Lancellotti (who played collegiately at North Carolina and is currently with the New York Mets’ High-A affiliate in Brooklyn) and RHP Brenden Cellucci (who played collegiately at Tulane and is now with the Boston Red Sox Double-A affiliate in Portland), has helped Siani keep a level head during his time with the Curve. Sammy’s tenure with Altoona has had it's ups and downs, but surely one of the brightest moments of his season was hitting a go-ahead home run against Somerset on June 20 with nearly a dozen family and friends in the stands watching. It’s only a matter of time until they watch Sammy’s home runs in major league stadiums, just like his older brother.

*This story was printed in Volume 25 Issue 9 of the Curve Chronicle for the July 30 - August 4 homestand.*