Ex-Thunder player Burt growing in Yanks’ system

As a 3-1 fastball came sailing up and in toward the batter’s box, Max Burt calmly flicked his wrists and watched the baseball fly high and far over the leftfield fence for a three-run home run.

That tape-measure shot — launched Tuesday night at TD Bank Ballpark — still may not have landed.

Now in his fifth season in the Yankees’ minor leagues, Burt knows that more moments like those are ultimately his ticket to the big leagues.

“To be honest, it’s all mental for me,” Burt said this week. “I knew I had all the physical attributes and stuff like that, but for me I needed to take a step up mentally and I knew that was my next step to kind of take me to that next level. I’m still working on it every day. You’re only as good as your next at-bat.”

Burt, the Yankees’ 28thround pick out of Northeastern in 2018, has started the season hot at a time when he needs to begin showing the organization that his bat is good enough to complement his superb defensive versatility.

The 26-year-old infielder entered Thursday leading Somerset with 11 hits, three home runs and 12 RBI in 30 plate appearances. His .440 batting average and 1.380 OPS are obviously unsustainable, but the early success is no accident, either.

Most of the adjustments he has made with Somerset’s second-year hitting coach Jake Hirst have been mental rather than mechanical, Burt said. He “dumbed everything down” in the box to simplify his approach and not become so bogged down with thoughts prior to each pitch.

“I definitely did a lot of work this spring just on, I want to drive the ball a little better,” Burt said. “But for me the thing that I think about is just being anchored in the box, being in the ground. When I’m anchored I let my eyes work and just kind of react to the pitch. I don’t want to be thinking too much stuff up there. I don’t really think about my swing. I’m thinking about moves I’m making in the box. Just really just kind of be anchored down and just let my eyes work.”

Burt played 56 games of Rookie Ball in 2018 and then reached Double-A in his first full pro season in 2019, back when the Yankees were still affiliated with Trenton. Burt is the only position player from that Eastern League champion Thunder team who is still playing in the Yankees’ system.

In the years since, Burt’s most positive attribute has been his strong defense at a variety of positions: third base, second base, first base, shortstop and even the corner outfield spots. He was a college shortstop and has primarily played third base in the minors, but he says he truly feels like a jack-of-alltrades who isn’t strongest at one particular spot.

“I think for me, being able to play defense anywhere is something that I’ve always been able to do,” Burt said. “Having that versatility to play anywhere and even play the outfield is something that I pride myself in. I’ve always prided myself in defense, so that’s something that’s always going to be with me.”

The flipside, of course, has been his uneven offensive production as he has a .235/.298/.364 hitting line in 346 career minor league games.

But the Yankees have stuck with him for a reason, and he feels ready to turn the corner. Burt’s 22.2 percent linedrive rate is a career high for this length of time, and it all started with what he considered to be an invaluable experience at Yankees spring training in March.

While appearing in 12 games down in Tampa, Burt learned from the likes of Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo and Anthony Volpe to play more freely at the plate.

“There’s no panic in them ever,” Burt said. “Just being able to kind of carry that and add that to my game is something that’s been big this year.”

Burt and the rest of his Somerset teammates got a boost off the field, too, when minor leaguers unionized for the first time last September. The players ratified a five-year collective bargaining agreement in March that increased pay in DoubleA from $13,800 to $30,250, among other financial perks.

“For us it’s great to get a little extra pay grade, but obviously the end goal is to get paid a lot more up in the bigs. It’s definitely big for me,” Burt said. “We were going from hotel to hotel last year every week. This year we’ve got apartments here (in Somerset) so we can kind of leave our stuff, get settled in, and we don’t have to check out every week, can take our time, leave our stuff here and we have this apartment for the full year.”

Burt’s only Triple-A experience came when he played 36 games with Scranton/WilkesBarre in 2021, and obviously reaching that level again soon would be ideal. But he says he simply wants to “stay in my zone” all season and not dwell on the good or the bad from the past, nor contemplate the future and how much time he may have left to prove himself to the Yankees.

“I’m getting paid to play baseball, and I expect to play this game until I’m 40 years old. You’re gonna have to rip the jersey off me to have me stop playing,” Burt said. “I don’t really think about my time. I’m getting older. I’m 26 years old, so there’s plenty of guys that have made debuts at this age or even later. So for me, I’m going day to day here.”