The Twins second round pick in this years June amateur draft was right-handed pitcher Nick Burdi. The 6 foot 4 inch 215-pound Burdi used primarily as a closer for the University of Louisville had a 0.49 ERA with 65 strikeouts in 37 innings as a junior for Louisville this past season. He recorded 18 saves in 32 games.
The Twins originally drafted Burdi in 2011 in the 24th round out of Downers Grove South High School in Illinois, outside of Chicago, but he went to school instead. Burdi’s fastball has been clocked above 100 miles per hour.
According to the Louisville Courier-Journal Burdi was upset that it took 46 picks to have his name called, telling reporters after the draft that he was “pissed” and would enter professional ball with a chip on his shoulder. Burdi signed with Minnesota on June 24th for $1.218 million (per Baseball America) and was assigned to the Twins Cedar Rapids Low-A team.
Burdi made his first appearance with the Kernels this past Sunday when he entered the game against the Clinton LumberKings in the top of the ninth with his home team leading 4 to 0. Burdi walked the first four batters he faced and was relieved by Jared Wilson who proceeded to give up four hits and a walk and when the smoke cleared the LumberKings had put a “7” on the board and the shucked Kernels ended up losing the game 7-4.
Burdi’s line for the game? Zero innings pitched, four walks, four runs, all earned and an ERA of infinity. A game I am sure that Burdi will never forget. Hopefully the man with a chip on his shoulder will take this game for what it was, a learning experience. Good luck in the future Nick, your humble pie is on the way.
Even with that poor outing, Burdi will turn out to be a much much better 2nd round pick then broken down Ryan Eades. That was a wasted pick.
Rick, I was not trying to say that Nick Burdi was a bad selection by the Twins, I was just pointing out how Burdi did in his first pro outing. It was just inteneded to be a fun piece showing how a star college closer did in his first appearance in professional baseball and how nervous this possible big league closer probably was.