Due to the departure of outfielder, the Cincinnati Reds have somewhat reduced their depth at the outfield position in the minor minors. Burdick was a member of the Baltimore Orioles organization at the start of the 2024 season, but the Orioles placed him on waivers after he spent three weeks in Triple-A. The Reds then selected him and gave him an option to Louisville.
He introduced himself to the Reds community, albeit briefly, a month later. The Batavia, Ohio native smashed a 500-foot home run while in Louisville on May 21st.
That distance would remain the longest home run of the 2024 professional baseball season, even though it’s “just” Triple-A. In 2024, the longest home run ever hit in the major leagues was 480 feet. Ironically, the Reds’ own Jakob Junis hit that home shot back in August when Jesus Sanchez and the Miami Marlins played Cincinnati. It was Junis’ first time wearing a Reds uniform, and he was hammered, giving up three runs on six hits in 1.2 innings, but Cincinnati prevailed 10-3 that day.
Peyton Burdick went unclaimed when the Reds placed him on waivers around six weeks after he hit the season’s biggest home homer. He was sent straight to Triple-A by Cincinnati. He ended up on the disabled list two weeks later and was out for the next two and a half months.
Burdick obviously had a lot of power potential, but he just didn’t hit all that much. Before suffering an injury that ended his season, he participated in 47 games for Louisville. When healthy, he hit just.189/.291/.341 and had 80 strikeouts in 189 plate appearances. When he started the season in the Orioles farm system and played 16 games in Triple-A with Norfolk, his performance was comparable.
The Wright State native who was selected in the third round by the Marlins in 2019 played in 46 games and hit five home runs for Miami in 2022 and 2023. He failed to make it to the major leagues in 2024 with the Reds or Orioles.
December releases are both rare and frequent. A player like Burdick is typically released in December since they were given the chance to play abroad and were given permission to do so. Just because it hasn’t been reported yet doesn’t mean that’s not what happened. A cursory scan of the internet hasn’t shown that to be the case yet. In any case, Burdick has left the Reds and will be searching for other chances.
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