Royals minor league third baseman was placed on military leave by Triple-A Omaha
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- Royals put Ruta on military leave from Triple‑A Omaha for armory training.
- West Point grad and 2nd Lt. Ruta is doing armory training and working with tanks.
- Team says Ruta should finish Fort Benning training and rejoin within a few weeks.
Third baseman Sam Ruta didn’t hear his name called at the 2024 MLB Draft despite setting career school records for home runs, RBIs and total bases.
But after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Ruta signed a minor-league free-agent deal with the Royals last year. He batted .218 with 15 doubles and six home runs in 73 games at Double-A Northwest Arkansas.
Ruta’s Naturals teammates had a lot of questions for him, as he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army after graduation.
“I talked to him a bunch about it,” said Royals catcher Carter Jensen, who spent time at Northwest Arkansas last season. “I was texting him the other day, actually. He said it’s just part of the job. He’s out there serving, and it’s really cool seeing him do that. So hopefully he’s back soon playing. But, of course, duty calls.”
Indeed. Ruta was set to start the season at Triple-A Omaha, but the Storm Chasers put him on the military leave list.
Mitch Maier, the Royals’ director of player development, said the military leave list is similar to the injured list, or a player being designated as temporary inactive.
“He’s doing his armory training. He’s at Fort Benning in Georgia,” Maier said of Ruta. “And really, the program was supposed to have concluded in the middle of February, and there were some delays with it. It was that weather stretch that went through there, that really cold blast, and some other things that have delayed the conclusion of that.
“And he’s at a point where he’s ready to graduate from that, and should be within a few weeks of being able to join us. But it initially was planning on being an offseason commitment that he was going back to do with the Army.”
Maier didn’t know the specifics of what Ruta is doing with the Army other than he’s dealing with tanks.
Although his work with the Army is Ruta’s focus, he has been able to do some baseball activities in his downtime, Maier said. When his time with the Army ends, Ruta will go to Arizona to work his way into playing shape.
“It’s been limited access to talk to him while he’s been doing it, but he’s updating me every week or so through the process,” Maier said.
The thought of working in an armored fighting vehicle piqued the interest of Jensen.
“I asked him all the questions about it and all that stuff, kind of how it is,” Jensen said. “And I really just asked him how it is riding a tank. I said it looks pretty cool.”
What was Ruta’s response?
“He agreed.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2026 at 9:56 AM.
