Devin Burkes announces return to Kentucky Baseball team

The Kentucky Wildcats Baseball team is coming off an incredibly successful season that ended up with a loss in the Super Regionals to the LSU Tigers’ super team.

With several key players graduating and others opting to sign MLB contracts, Nick Mingione and his staff will look to build another successful roster through the transfer portal and key players already inside the program.

One piece they will not need to search for, however, is catching, as Devin Burkes announced his return to Lexington on Saturday.

After taking over the job close to the end of the 2022 season, Burkes became a staple in the UK lineup this past season. He played in 61 games for the Cats this year and finished the season with a slash-line of .291/.423/.502. He also added nine HRs and 53 RBIs.

Returning Burkes is huge for the Kentucky roster next season. The Cats will now look to hopefully return pitchers Mason Moore, Zach Lee, Ryan Hagenow, and Seth Chavez.

Positionally they will also monitor Grant Smith and Ryan Waldschmidt as they both recover from injuries heading into 2022-23.

If the Cats return all players mentioned above added in with the already successful transfer class that Mingione is putting together, Kentucky Proud Park could be rocking once again this coming year.