The Cincinnati Reds have lost a little bit of depth in the minor leagues at the outfield position as the team has released outfielder Peyton Burdick. When the 2024 season began, Burdick was in the Baltimore Orioles organization, but after three weeks in Triple-A to begin his season the Orioles placed him on waivers and the Reds picked him up and optioned him to Louisville.
A month later is when Peyton Burdick made himself known to the Reds sphere, even if just for a little bit. On May 21st the Batavia, Ohio native was in Louisville and hit a 500-foot home run.
While it’s “just” Triple-A, that distance would hold up as the longest home run of the 2024 professional baseball season. The longest home run hit in the big leagues in 2024 was 480 feet. Funny enough, that home run was served up by the Reds own Jakob Junis back in August when Jesus Sanchez and the Miami Marlins hosted Cincinnati – it was the debut in a Reds uniform for Junis and he got clobbered as he gave up three runs on six hits in 1.2 innings, but Cincinnati won 10-3 that day.
About six weeks after hitting the longest home run of the year, the Reds placed Peyton Burdick on waivers and he went unclaimed. Cincinnati outrighted him to Triple-A. Two weeks after that he wound up on the injured list and did not return to the field for the final two-and-a-half months.
While there was clearly a lot of power potential there for Burdick, he simply didn’t hit all that much. He played in 47 games for Louisville before injury cost him the rest of the season but when he was healthy and on the field he hit just .189/.291/.341 and he had 80 strikeouts in 189 plate appearances. His results were similar in his 16 games in Triple-A with Norfolk while in the Orioles farm system to begin the season.
The 2019 3rd round pick of the Marlins out of Wright State saw action in the big leagues with Miami in both 2022 and 2023, playing in 46 games and hitting five home runs. In 2024 he didn’t reach the big leagues with either the Orioles or the Reds.
A release in December is both uncommon and common. Usually with a player like Burdick if they are released in December it’s because they have gotten an opportunity to play overseas somewhere and were granted a release. Some quick internet searching has not revealed that to be the case at this point, but that doesn’t mean it’s not what happened – just that if it has that it hasn’t been reported yet. Either way, Burdick isn’t with the Reds anymore and will be looking at new opportunities.
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